Brian Casey

Assistant Professor of Conducting and Horn; Director of Orchestral Activities

E-mail: brian.casey@houghton.edu
Phone: 585.567.9400

Brian Casey was appointed in 2007 as Assistant Professor of Conducting and Horn and Director of Orchestral Activities at the Greatbatch School of Music.  An advocate of chamber music, he also coordinates and arranges for various chamber ensembles.  He had previously held faculty positions at two-year colleges in the Kansas City area and served as Music Director of the Benedictine College/Atchison (KS) Community Orchestra.  He has conducted several other community and semi-professional ensembles.

Casey holds the Doctor of Arts degree in wind and orchestral conducting from the University of Northern Colorado, where he founded and conducted the Foundation Brass, an ensemble composed of premier graduate and undergraduate student brass and percussion players.  At UNC, he performed—both as conductor and on the horn—with the Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, and chamber groups.  His dissertation treated funeral music styles historically, theoretically—and practically, in that it offered new transcriptions of landmark funeral pieces for use by various instrumental ensembles.

Casey holds the B.A. degree in Music Education from Harding University (AR) and the M.M. in wind conducting from the University of Delaware.  He was graduated summa cum laude from all three institutions and is a member of Alpha Chi, Pi Kappa Lambda, and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies.  His principal conducting teachers have been Robert Streckfuss, Kenneth Singleton, Richard Mayne, and Russell Guyver; he has participated in conducting symposia with Allan McMurray, Stanley DeRusha, Gary Hill, Craig Kirchoff, Patrick Casey, Eric Whitacre, John Lynch, and Sarah McKoin.

While serving as principal horn and associate conductor with both the Kansas City Wind Symphony and the Kansas City Brass Project; Casey also appeared with the Liberty (MO) Symphony, the Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City, and the Kansas City Civic Orchestra.  A well-rounded musician, he could once hold his own as a jazz pianist; he directed and sang with the Christian a cappella octet Lights for eight years; and he is active in transcribing, arranging, and composing both vocal and instrumental pieces, specializing in brass and Christian a cappella works.  His hymn I Behold You was recently recorded by the Harding University Alumni Chorus.

Having taught in small academies for a few years, Casey also worked in banking and technology support but was overjoyed, when the opportunity presented itself, to move back into music, the vocation of his first love.  He has published articles on worship and congregational singing in Image and Worship Leader and for three years reviewed contemporary worship CDs for Worship Leader. For several years he self-published Principally Proskuneo, in which he wrote and digested worship material in newsletter format, and his unpublished, short book On Leading in the Assembly is poised for distribution. Casey blogs periodically on worship, the Christian assembly, and the Christian life in general.

Casey has had instrumental compositions and transcriptions performed by the Dallas Wind Symphony Brass, the Heart of America Wind Symphony Brass, the Kansas City Brass Project, Offutt Air Force Base’s Winds of Freedom Woodwind Quintet, the University of Northern Colorado’s Grad Brass Quintet and Foundation Brass, and Houghton College’s chamber and orchestral ensembles.  Already a well-traveled contributor to musical life in the Southern Tier, Casey performs with the Houghton Brass Quintet and is second horn with the Southern Tier Symphony.  He has also performed with the Hornell Area Wind Ensemble, with the Wellsville Performing Arts Orchestra, and in area musical theatre productions.  In the summer, he has served as principal conductor of the Rushford Town Band and of the Short Tract Town Theatre pit orchestra.

In his free time, he enjoys racquetball, bicycling, motorcycling, his Shepherd-Lab Tessa, and hiking solo or with his wife Karly.  The Caseys’ firstborn, Jedd Garrett, arrived in May 2009; the three of them participate in the life of the Lawson Road Church of Christ in Greece, NY, an entirely a cappella congregation where Brian is one of the worship leaders.

Professional Memberships: LAO (League of American Orchestras), CBDNA (College Band Directors National Association), and ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers)

For more information, visit Dr. Casey’s professional page on the College web, or his Encounter Music site.

Courses: Philharmonia, Basic Conducting, Advanced/Graduate Conducting, Horn, Aural Skills, and Orchestral Literature.