Don Bryn is a composer, arranger, performer, and teacher based in Florida, USA and San Jose, Costa Rica.
Don Bryn is a composer at heart but after finishing his masters degree in composition, he spent a large part of his career conducting and playing piano. For 14 years he toured the globe, playing and conducting over 300 shows a year, writing arrangements for big bands and show bands, and visiting over 120 countries. He did find time to compose and his composition “Too Much of a Good Thing” for orchestra was recorded in Melbourne, Australia and the Piano Sextet in D was performed on Nashville radio. More recently he completed a sonata for guitar ensemble and orchestrated a series of songs for Czech crossover artist Lenka Graf and a symphonic pops show that has been touring the Americas.
Don is the Director of Music Theory and Keyboard Studies for the State College of Florida, where he hosted the region’s first PianoPalooza! festival in 2022. He recently completed an online music appreciation textbook, “Now Hear This”, and a series of five “Piano Grand” concerts featuring repertoire for five pianos. He also works as a singing coach for the Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and continues to perform jazz and classical concerts across the Southwest Florida region.
In 2022 Don completed a graduate diploma in Film and Game Scoring from the European Academy of Fine Arts and had a blast composing for video media. Don has also been working as a software engineer and designer for many years. His ear-training apps and music theory tests have been used extensively in theory courses. He created a music department website with a broad list of functions from managing auditions and scholarships to event promotion and scheduling, concert program management, student signups, a community gigboard, and even conference registrations. Don is currently pursuing certifications for full-stack development.
In 2024, Don was featured in an interview with conductor Dr. Robyn Bell - take a listen: