Brian O’Kane Trumpet Player

Brian O’Kane is one of Canada’s most exciting jazz trumpet players and has performed and recorded with some of the country’s finest ensembles including the Rob McConnell Tentet, The Boss Brass, John MacLeod’s Rex Hotel Jazz Orchestra (2011 Juno Award winner), the Kirk MacDonald Jazz Orchestra, and Hilario Duran’s Latin Jazz Big Band (2007 Juno Award winner). He holds a Masters Degree in Jazz Performance from the University of Toronto and is the Head of Brass Studies at Canada’s prestigious Humber School of Creative and Performing Arts, one of Canada’s preeminent jazz and commercial music programs. Brian has also backed up a lengthy list of international artists including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra Jr., Diana Krall, Paquito D’Rivera, Maria Schneider, and The Temptations.

Brian has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and True North Brass, has appeared on dozens of television/radio jingles and is in demand as a pit musician. He is currently a member of the Shaw Festival Orchestra in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Brian has performed at major jazz festivals throughout Canada, the U.S. and abroad and has had the pleasure of working with young musicians nationwide as a featured artist/clinician/adjudicator at colleges, universities and festivals. It was an honor for him to perform as a featured artist/clinician at the 33rd Annual International Trumpet Guild Conference held in Banff, Alberta.