About Brent.
Brent Williams is a trumpeter, music educator and clinician based in Bakersfield, California. His teaching centers on sound, musical communication and the practical habits that help musicians develop over time.
Since 2020, Williams has taught applied trumpet at California State University, Bakersfield. He also teaches instrumental music in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District, working with elementary band and strings students across multiple campuses, and has taught private students since 2012.
His sound-first approach draws on the Chicago school of brass pedagogy and Claude Gordon’s Systematic Approach. His teachers and mentors include Edward Carroll, Sal Panelli, Kris Tiner, Charles Brady and Don Williams, and his additional study includes Chosen Vale, the Orford Arts Centre and the Musikallpa festival in Lima, Peru.
He performs with Mento Buru, Soulajar, and Foster Campbell and Friends, and his students have earned places in California All-State honor ensembles and regional youth symphonies.
Education & service.
Education & certification
- Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education · Boston University (in progress)
- Master of Music in Music Education · Boston University
- Bachelor of Arts in Music · CSU Bakersfield
- California Single Subject Teaching Credential in Music
- Kodály Level 1 Certification
Service & membership
- 2nd Vice President, Kern County Music Educators Association
- All-State Junior High Band Manager, CASMEC (2025)
- Adjudicator and clinician for CBDA, SCSBOA, KCMEA, and CMEA festivals
- Member, International Trumpet Guild and NAfME
Research.
Brent’s research connects brass pedagogy, motor learning, performance wellness, and the preservation of pedagogical lineages.
His current work explores the documentation and retrieval of pedagogical knowledge, with attention to consent and privacy. In development: Sound-First Brass Teaching, workshop material drawing on Arnold Jacobs’s “Song and Wind” approach and Vincent Cichowicz’s emphasis on lyrical flow.
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