Brian Coughlin has won acclaim throughout the United States as an ensemble director, a versatile double- and electric bassist, and as a genre-defying composer. Prior to founding Fireworks, he served as music director of the Hartt Sinfonietta, the Black Sheep, and the Noise Factory. Brian has performed hundreds of concerts throughout the United States in venues ranging from venerable classical music institutions such as the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, to prominent jazz venues such as the Saratoga Jazz Festival, to major rock clubs such as Toad's Place in New Haven. He has performed as a soloist with the Berkshire Symphony, and has premiered over fifty new works written for him. Described by Tom Manoff of NPR as "a talented and interesting composer... possessing something that cannot be taught: a real gift for melody," Brian has written and arranged for groups ranging from classical and new music ensembles such as the Eugene Opera, the Berkshire Symphony, Cygnus, Basso Bongo, and Non-Sequitur to popular and jazz music groups such as the Island Breeze Steel Band and the rock band Oneida. The New Music Connoisseur's review of a portrait concert of Brian's music in New York wrote "Like a great Beatles standard... Captivating, but impossible to pin down, pleasurable as well as subtle." His music has been featured on Minnesota Public Radio, NBC's "The 10! Show," has been used to accompany fashion shows by Trovata and Philip Lim, and has been performed at major venues throughout the US including Carnegie Hall, The Lied Center of Kansas, and the Library of Congress. Recent awards include First Prize in the 2008 Long Island Arts Council Song Competition (for the song "America") and the 2008 Bakersfield Symphony New Directions Contest. Brian holds both a Master of Music degree in Composition from the University of Oregon and a Master of Music degree in Double Bass Performance from the Hartt School. His teachers include Robert Black and Milt Hinton (bass), and David del Tredici, Robert Kyr, and George Tsontakis (composition).