Canadian Brass

Joe Burgstaller, trumpet

Called “a superstar of the trumpet” by conductor JoAnn Falletta, Joe Burgstaller is a long-time trumpeter and arranger with Canadian Brass. Now Professor of Trumpet at Arizona State University, Joe also spent years as an international soloist and a clinician, including his Change Your Mind, Change Your Playing® seminars. Prior to ASU, he was for 11 years at The Peabody Institute, having been named in 2008 a Distinguished Visiting Artist. His formidable online presence includes the world’s most viewed version of La Virgen de la Macarena (4.6 million Youtube views) and his popular Trumpet Warmup Show, livestreamed weekly on Facebook with upwards of 25,000 viewers in 30+ countries. Joe first joined the Brass at the age of thirty. Prior to the Brass, he was a full-time soloist performing 60 solo concerts every season with his Rafael Méndez Project and was a member of the acclaimed Meridian Arts Ensemble.

Mikio Sasaki, trumpet

Mikio Sasaki is a GRAMMY Award-winning, Juilliard and Yale-trained trumpeter. Prior to joining Canadian Brass, he was a member of the St. Louis Brass Quintet and the Atlantic Brass Quintet. Raised in a family of classical, jazz, and bluegrass musicians, Sasaki is a flexible performer with the ability to switch seamlessly between classical, jazz, and other styles of music. Concurrent with his position with the Brass, he is an Assistant Professor of Trumpet at the University of Oregon. Mikio hails from a “Royal Family of Trumpet” of sorts, as his father is legendary trumpet performer and pedagogue Ray Sasaki, formerly Professor of Trumpet at the University of Texas in Austin.

Jeff Nelsen, horn

The instrument formerly known as the French Horn stands at the center of a brass quintet. There is not a concert performed by Canadian Brass anywhere in the world where professional Horn colleagues and former students do not surround Jeff Nelsen. There is no better-informed Hornist than Jeff: he was recently President of the International Horn Society, he has played in just about all of the major symphonies in North America, performed in the music of computer games, toured with John Legend, and played in the Broadway pits in New York.

Keith Dyrda, trombone

Dubbed the "Wayne Gretzky of the Trombone," Keith Dyrda recently returned to the Brass after initially joining the group in 2010 as a replacement for co-founder Gene Watts while obtaining his Bachelor of Music degree from McGill University. He also holds a Master of Music from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. Dyrda contributed to the Canadian Brass' 2011 award-winning recording Brahms On Brass. In addition to a performance career with several leading orchestras, he also spent five years as a member of the All-Star Brass, a quintet that performed and recorded extensively at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. A true Canadian, he was born and raised in Winnipeg, MB, and is a member of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Conrad Charles (Chuck) Daellenbach, O.C., DMA (hon.), Doctor Litterarium (hon.), Doctor of Music (hon.), PhD (paid in full), tuba

Every social organization needs a bookkeeper, manager, spokesperson, humorist, and critic, so while Canadian Brass has been looking for these people through the years, founder Chuck Daellenbach has been filling in. Growing up in a musical family tradition, Chuck had to sing in choirs, play cello (only one year, unfortunately), and take up the tuba to help his dad fill all the positions in his band. Since these musical activities had taken up all his time, there was little left for higher math and physics – off to music school! It was at the Eastman where he learned the art of taking every opportunity that knocks, the tiger’s roar on tuba, and, after forgetting to leave upon graduation, went on to earn a doctorate at age 25. It was then off to Toronto to head up the brass department (two of us) and meet Eugene Watts, forming one of the most impressive entertainment teams since the Marx Brothers.