Members – Douglas Burden

Douglas Burden has been the Bass Trombonist of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 1972. He has taught at the University of Ottawa since 1975 and continues to do so. He is also the bass trombone instructor at the McGill Faculty of Music in Montreal. For a period of five years he travelled weekly to Kingston and taught at Queen's University. He was also a member of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra for seventeen years. Upon receiving a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music, he began his formal studies in Rochester under the famous trombone teacher Emory Remington and later with Donald Knaub, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance "suma cum laude". As an active member of the musical life of Ottawa, Mr. Burden has performed solo Bass Trombone Recitals for the CBC, solo and chamber music recitals at the University of Ottawa, was a member of the Ottawa Brass Quintet, and was the manager and co-founder of "Classical Brass", a ten-piece brass ensemble. Currently he is the bass trombonist of Capital BrassWorks. Mr. Burden has performed in the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival on many occasions. As a free-lance musician Mr. Burden has performed and recorded with L'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal under Charles Dutoit, The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the pit orchestras for "Les Misérables" and "The Phantom of the Opera" among many others. Other freelance work has included playing in the backup orchestras for singers and entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, and Rich Little. Mr. Burden is a Yamaha Performing Artist and can be heard on recordings of the National Arts Centre Orchestra on the RCA and CBC labels and on the London Decca label with L'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. He is in demand across North America as a soloist, conductor, adjudicator, and clinician.