Jazz Ensemble Director

Piano Instructor

World Music

M240 Creative Arts Center
(937)775-3112
brian.cashwell@wright.edu

Dr. Brian Cashwell (D.M.A. University of Cincinnati college-Conservatory of Music, M.M. University of Georgia, B.M. Florida State University is currently serving as an adjunct faculty member at Wright State University. Equally at home in jazz and classical idioms, he maintains an active schedule performing in a variety of musical roles. At Wright State he teaches jazz history, jazz improvisation, class piano, jazz piano and world music courses. He has also collaborated with the WSU Women’s Chorale and Collogiate Chorale, and performed in various student and faculty recitals.

His performing experience includes tours with The Boys Choir of Harlem throughout the U.S. and abroad, and choral collaborations with the Cleveland Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, and other notable ensembles as pianist for the Central State University Choir. He served as the pianist for the premiere of Rosephanye Powell’s To Sit and Dream, and Steven Aldredge’s The Lord is My Shepherd. His own arrangement of Johnny Mandel's You Are There was premiered by the WSU Women's Chorale.

As a jazz musician he has performed with the Blue Wisp Big Band, Masterworks Jazz Ensemble, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Byron Striping, John Fedchock, Marcus Printump, Dominick Farinacci, Melvin Sparks, James Carter, Lew Soloff, Bob DeVos, John Von Ohlen, Rusty Burge, and many, many others. He has studied jazz with Fred Hersch, Gary Dial, Phil DeGreg, and Mike LeDonne. His trio is in demand locally and has been featured in many performance venues, including the first annual Fairborn Jazz Festival. He is a faculty member of the Miami Valley Jazz Camp, and a member of the Bright Moments Quintet which will be performing at The 2017 OMEA convention in Cleveland. He has broad a discography as a collaborative musician, bandleader, and composer, and his playing has been broadcast nationwide on NPR. 

He also recently made his motion picture debut as a producer onscreen in the 2015 Don Cheadle film Miles Ahead, a fictionalized biopic of Miles Davis.

Before joining Wright State, Brian Cashwell lived in New York City. While in New York, he performed in various musical roles at a diverse selection of venues including The Blue Note, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Symphony Space, The Lion’s Den, The Cutting Room, Kavehaz, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He also served as a ballet pianist for The School of American Ballet, Barnard College, Steps on Broadway, Ballet Academy East, and The Alvin Ailey School.

His theatre works includes performances in touring Broadway productions of The Producers, Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, Pacific Overtures, The Irish Tenors, and many other productions at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center, Music Hall, and Playhouse in the Park. He has consistently served as a church musician throughout his career, and is currently the organist and men's ensemble director at Normandy United Methodist Church.

When not at the piano, he enjoys delving into cooking various world cuisines, especially the food of Thailand.