Keith Brion

Keith Brion is founder and conductor of his own New Sousa Band. The band was formed in 1986 for a nationally televised PBS special, The New Sousa Band on Stage at Wolf Trap. It has since toured in every section of the United States and has performed overseas tours in Japan (1996) and in China (2010–2011).

Since 1980 Mr. Brion has conducted his popular “Sousa at the Symphony” concerts with nearly every American major and regional symphony orchestra, often in repeat performances. He has also appeared as a guest conductor with many of America’s military, university, and community bands.

Mr. Brion is a former Director of Bands at Yale University. His Sousa portrayal began in 1977 as a series of Yale Concert Band Sousa performances in New Haven, Rhode Island, and at Carnegie Hall. He is a former music educator in the New Jersey public schools.

Mr. Brion has published more than forty performing editions of Sousa’s band music as well as critical band editions of the works of Percy Grainger, Charles Ives, J. Bodewalt Lampe, and David Wallis Reeves. He is a board member of the International Percy Grainger Society.

Keith Brion’s recorded output includes a project to record all of Sousa’s marches and concert music for the Naxos’ “Sousa, Music for Wind Band” series. Recordings for the twenty-three-volume series are being made with major military and conservatory bands in England, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. He is currently preparing the recording of the final series, volumes 22 and 23, to be recorded in 2019. Mr. Brion has also recorded the band of Sousa for Delos, Bainbridge, and Walking Frog records. With the New Sousa Band he has recorded a live concert video of their PBS special for Proscenium Entertainment: “The New Sousa Band On Stage, at Wolf Trap.” Other recording projects include three Grainger CDs (one orchestral), five recordings of the music of Alan Hovhaness for wind band including the complete Hovhaness wind symphonies for Naxos and Delos, plus three orchestral albums each of the band music of Sousa and Victor Herbert, also for Naxos.

Keith Brion frequently appears in Sousa concerts and clinics. He maintains a home office in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a studio/library in New Haven, Connecticut. He can be contacted at [email protected].