As a youth, Timothy Brockett was an award-winning trumpeter, receiving both Music Student Of the Year Award and the Band Director’s Award at prestigious Detroit Country Day School, and highest honors at the MSBOA Solo and Ensemble Festival. He was awarded Rotary Club of Birmingham, Michigan’s young musician scholarship to attend Interlochen Arts Academy’s All-State concert band program (1980), and he is a recipient of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of International Relations citizenship award (1984). He completed his undergraduate studies at Oakland University, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz saxophone performance (1990). His mentors have included Dr. Marvin “Doc” Holladay, Dr. Gerald Woughter, performers with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and composer Stanley Hollingsworth.
Timothy has taught at Oakland University and Oakland Community College, leading jazz ensembles, teaching jazz theory, and lecturing on the music of John Coltrane. In Asia, he has acted as a curriculum development consultant for the Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory of Music, and under the auspices of the Ho Chi Minh City government’s office of vocal music production has worked toward the development of jazz from traditional Vietnamese songs. He recently was invited to perform a jazz piano demonstration for a group of classical piano teachers in Machida, Japan. He also teaches privately in Asia.
Although now limiting himself to piano, guitar, and voice, Timothy has performed on many other instruments: soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, flute, alto flute, clarinet, trumpet, electric bass, contrabass, percussion, and African drums. His repertoire is extensive and varied. He has performed with Alberta Adams, Bob Anderson, Marcus Belgrave, Peter Brown, Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, Phyllis Diller, Arthur Duncan, Little Eva, Roy Gaines, Leslie Gore, Charlie Gracie, Kenneth “Pancho” Hagood, Dale Hawkins, Bill Heid, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, Long John Hunter, Wanda Jackson, Jack Jones, Shirley Jones, Paul Keller, Jim McCarty, Scott Morgan, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Geno Parks, James Peterson, Marvin Rainwater, Johnny Rawls, Sonny Rhodes, Sir Mack Rice, Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus, Mitch Ryder, John Sinclair, Hubert Sumlin, Martha & the Vandellas, Gino Washington, Joe Weaver, and many others. Notable appearances as a bandleader or solo artist include the Ann Arbor Festival Of the Arts, Blues Bash On Taiwan, the Grand Rapids Jazz and Blues Festival, the Michigan Music Festival, Montreaux-Detroit Jazz Festival, and this year’s Best Of Vietnam Awards. He has held extended engagements at Nagoya Marriott, Hilton Singapore, Park Hyatt Saigon, and the Ginza Crest Club.
An accomplished composer, Timothy’s arrangements, compositions, and songs have been performed or recorded by Alberta Adams, Johnnie Bassett, Diego Melendez y su Orquesta K-Che, the Eastside Blues Jumpers, the Falcons, Odessa Harris, Frankie Lee, the Motor City Horns, Bobby Murray, and the Sun Messengers. He is currently writing divertimenti for classical guitar, and various instrumental commissions, and is working with Nguyen Hong Minh and Erata Corp. Music & Performing Arts to implement a program of seminars designed to increase musical awareness and understanding in Vietnam. .
When he is not performing, composing, or practicing, Timothy pursues theoretical and pedagogical projects, studies opera, watches classic films, and plays tennis. He has been a contributing columnist for several Asian publications.
Timothy was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1966. He began working in Asia in 2001, and moved to Vietnam in 2005.
