[naviga:h2]M. Brian Swan[/naviga:h2]

Music Teacher

Warwick Academy

"The soul of a country and of a people is found in its culture, and music is a big part of that."

Brian Swan has been a music teacher at Warwick Academy for eight years. He teaches violin, viola, cello, bass, music history, and music theory from beginners to GCSE and IB level students from Year 5 students to Year 13 students between the ages of 10 and 18.

"I chose to do this because I love music. I could never see myself working in an office inputting data or crunching numbers. Sure I may have the intelligence to go into banking, insurance, or accounting but music is where my heart is and what I am happiest doing. Passing on my knowledge as well as performing as a musician insures that Bermuda retains some of its culture and identity. Music makes you feel, it touches the heart. It gives strength to speeches, stories and ideas. Music has the power to change a person's mood in a matter of seconds. Music expresses ideas that cannot be expressed by words. It is an essential part of being human yet there is a tendency to neglect music and think of it as unimportant. Think of what the world would be like without one drum beat or tapping of a rhythm, without one note sung or hummed, with no instrument played. Could you live in a world like that? I know I couldn't."

Besides a Bachelors in Music from Mount Allison University and a Masters in music from The University of Leeds, Mr. Swan also taught at the Bermuda College for two years.

"Some of my students have become professional performers, promoters, producers and teachers. It is a great feeling that you have helped to increase the amount of music that is in the world. It is also rewarding in the short term when students perform for their parents and seeing the joy that an audience gets from a performance. There is a lot of work that goes into every performance and it is lovely to know that each performance is appreciated."

He is also performing musician: "My favourite type of music is actually electronic and I will be travelling to New Jersey for the Electro-Music festival where my wife and I have been sponsored by the Bermuda Arts Council to perform at the festival. I also have three albums on sale on iTunes under the band name 1undread, which is made up of myself and my wife. I perform with Calvin Worrell and Chris Darrell in a Jazz trio called AMG."

He recently played in the Pit Band for Gilbert and Sullivan's production of "Oliver".