Buster Birch is an award-winning jazz educator from London, UK. He was a professorial member of the jazz faculty at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of music for seven years where he taught improvisation, musicianship, jazz repertoire and jazz history classes. He has also lectured at The Royal Academy of Music, The Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Middlesex University.
He is director of The Original UK Jazz Summer School, winner of the UK Parliamentary Award for Jazz Education. The UK's longest-running and largest jazz summer school (www.theoriginalukjazzsummerschool.com) it is a week-long residential course hosted at The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama for singers and all instrumentalists of all ages and experience levels.
He provides live online jazz improvisation workshops and video lessons, covering classic jazz repertoire. Each class includes downloadable resources, including custom-made backing tracks and exercises. To see upcoming dates please visit www.busterbirch.co.uk/onlinejazzworkshops. Video lessons are available to download at www.busterbirch.co.uk/recordingsofonlinejazzworkshops.
He is co-founder and course leader for BYMT Jazz School (www.bymt.co.uk) which runs regular jazz improvisation classes for junior and secondary school students at the county music centre. In 2017 BYMT Jazz School won the prestigious Will Michael Diploma Award for Jazz Education, a national award recognising “outstanding commitment to jazz education” and “acknowledging the work of those field practitioners who are actually delivering jazz education and in many cases helping to combat the widespread jazz phobia among classroom music teachers and instrumental tutors.”
Buster Birch is also a busy freelance jazz drummer who has worked with many of the UK’s finest jazz musicians. He has an honours degree in music from the University of London and a post-graduate diploma in jazz performance from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He also studied at the Drummers Collective in New York City and privately with Jim Chapin and Joe Morello (of The Dave Brubeck Quartet). He has performed at virtually every major concert hall and jazz club in London and at international festivals. He has toured in over 30 countries and played on more than 30 CDs. He has been a member of three “world” music groups (Terza Rima, The Branco Stoysin Trio and Heads South) with whom he recorded and toured extensively. He has played for world-class orchestras, including The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and deputised on West End shows.
He created his own critically acclaimed show www.busterplaysbuster.com which features the Buster Birch Jazz Quartet playing live and in sync with the screening of various different Buster Keaton feature-length silent movies, for which he arranged and scored over 4hrs of music.
In addition to his regular freelance work, he is a member of the following bands... ARQ (The Alison Rayner Quintet) - winners of the Parliamentary Award for “Best UK Jazz Ensemble”, The Jo Fooks Quartet, Heads South, The London Jazz Trio and The Halstead Jazz Club Big Band.
For more information please see www.busterbirch.co.uk
