Southern California Brass Consortium

To share the exhilarating spirit of brass ensemble music through high-quality concerts, recordings, and educational outreach.

Long Beach Gives: 

For Long Beach Gives 2025, the Southern California Brass Consortium (SCBC) is raising funds to grow our brand-new educational outreach program, The Great American Band. Launched in April 2025, this dynamic 45-minute concert presentation introduces elementary school students to the rich and varied sounds of American music. From rousing marches and lively jazz to opera, patriotic tunes, circus music, ragtime, movie scores, and even pop hits like Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off.

Led by conductor Kurt Curtis, The Great American Band engages young audiences in a fun, interactive way. Students are encouraged to sing along, move to the music, and even join in the performance. High school musicians are invited on stage at select moments to play alongside SCBC’s professional brass and percussion players. The excitement and enthusiasm from students and teachers alike has been overwhelming, and our goal is to bring this program to schools across Southern California, reaching all grades and communities.

About Us:

The Southern California Brass Consortium (SCBC), America’s largest professional symphonic brass ensemble, is a non-profit organization founded in 2013. Its mission is to share the exhilarating spirit of brass music through concerts, recordings, educational outreach, and world premiere compositions. SCBC is an ensemble of 25 professional brass players and percussionists (and a harp!), many of whom are studio musicians, as well as performing in such ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, San Diego Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and entertainment venues such as Disneyland theme park. SCBC is also dedicated to the commissioning of new works; over the last 10 years, the group has presented over 20 world premieres.

SCBC’s relationship with the film industry allows us to present new arrangements of film music from past to present. SCBC creates 90% of its own custom arrangements, as many of our members are highly-skilled composers and arrangers.

In addition to eleven successful seasons of concerts in Long Beach, CA, SCBC also maintains a very active presence in the Southern California community, collaborating with other notable organizations and performing at venues from Los Angeles to Palm Springs to San Diego. In 2014, 2017 and 2021, SCBC was featured as an opening and closing act for the L.A. County Holiday Celebration at the Los Angeles Music Center on Christmas Eve, televised live on PBS.

Next Season: