Billy Buss

Playing trumpet and piano since the age of nine and studying jazz since age 11, Berkeley, California native Billy Buss is emerging as in-demand artist and educator. After graduating Summa Cum Laude from both the Berklee College of Music in 2009 (B.A. in Professional Music) and The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at Loyola University of New Orleans in 2011 (M.A. in Music), Billy transplanted his performing and teaching endeavors to the Greater Manhattan Area.

Buss has received numerous awards from DownBeat Magazine, The National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts (NFAA) and The White House. His talents and dedication have allowed him the opportunity to perform around the world at such venues as the Monterey, Umbria, Montreux and JVC Jazz festivals; the Dubrovnik Summer Music Festival in Croatia; numerous festivals in Japan; the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; a variety of clubs in Boston and New York, the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, and the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, China – the former two as part of a State Department sponsored tour with legends Herbie Hancock and Dee Dee Bridgewater.

In addition to a long list of performance opportunities, Buss has spent the last 6 years developing his own teaching curriculum which expounds upon numerous subjects that have dominated his studies: Brass Technique (Jazz and Classical), Improvisation Techniques, Harmony and Theory, Ear Training, Composition, Arranging and Performance Techniques. During his stint in Graduate School in New Orleans, Billy honed this curriculum while traveling throughout the Gulf Coast region bringing knowledge, fun and discourse through jazz music to underprivileged and under-funded schools in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Buss currently travels around the country conducting clinics on Motivic Development, Developing a Unique Voice and Advanced Improvisational Techniques.  He is an ASCAP artist.

He is currently the Band Director at The Mission Hill School in Jamaica Plain, MA and on faculty at The Boston School of Music Arts (Dorchester, MA) and Soyulla Artists (New York, NY) where he teaches trumpet, piano, Jazz and Classical Harmony as well as general musicianship.

Buss can be heard performing frequently in New York City from jazz clubs in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side (The Blue Note, Café WAH, Sullivan Hall, Smalls, 55 Bar, DROM, etc) to Performing Arts Centers (Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Lincoln Center, Manhattan Ballroom, Brooklyn Bowl) with artists such as legendary drummer Billy Hart, tenor saxophonist Dayna Stephens, Pop sensation Alice Tan Ridley, Hip-Hop super group Deltron 3030, and more. Most recently, Buss performed with Thelonious Monk Jr. in Osaka, Japan.