Inside the Section: The Little Big Band Residency

Inside the Section: The Little Big Band Residency

Mentorship & Performance with Bryson Borgstedt

Ten chairs. One book. Eight weeks.

Inside the Section is a professional-grade residency for musicians who want time on a real bandstand — not a workshop, but a working reading band with a full book of charts and a performance at the end of it. Bryson Borgstedt leads from the front, the way a bandleader does: calling tunes, fixing sections, and holding the ensemble to the standard he's held bands to for four decades.

If you already read, already play, and want the thing you can't get from a practice room — the sound of ten people learning to breathe together — this is that.

Sitting Next to the Real Thing

The lessons that make a player aren't in books. They come from sitting three feet from someone who's already done it, watching how they handle a phrase, a cutoff, a chart they've never seen.

Bryson brings more than four decades of professional performance and teaching to every session, and he instructs with a rare combination of patience, kindness, and deep-seated authority. You will not get scolded. You will get better.

Eight weeks concentrating on:

• Ensemble skills — breathing, phrasing, and swinging as one unit

• Doubling — the specific demands of woodwind doubling in a small book

• Sight reading — first-take confidence, the kind the professional circuit requires

• Theory in action — forms, harmonic structure, and improvisation applied live

Claim Your Chair

We are filling one specific Little Big Band book. Every part is essential to the collective sound, so attendance is a commitment, not a preference.

Woodwinds — Alto (w/ Soprano & Flute) · Tenor (w/ Clarinet) · Baritone (w/ Bass Clarinet)

Brass — Lead Trumpet (w/ Flugel) · Jazz Trumpet (w/ Flugel) · Trombone

Rhythm — Piano · Guitar · Bass · Drums

Chairs are filled [first-come / by audition / at the director's discretion — pick one]. When a chair is claimed, it's gone.

[REGISTER →] https://events.humanitix.com/inside-the-section-fall-2026

Tuition

• General: $295

• ColaJazz Member: $260

• Student: $195

Financial assistance is available through the Eboni Ramm Music Scholarship Fund, supported by the SLW Charitable Fund. Inquire here.

Sixteen hours in a working band, a book of charts you won't find anywhere else in the Midlands, and a public performance — for less than the cost of three private lessons.

Logistics

• When: Mondays, Sept 14 – Nov 2 · 6:00–8:00 PM

• Where: ColaJazz Office, 2123 College Street, Columbia, SC 29205

• Register by: 11:59PM Sept 4, 2026

• Finale: The term culminates in a live public performance.

• Hospitality: Water and coffee provided.

• Who: Intermediate and above. You must read music and have control of your instrument. Built for gigging professionals, college students, and serious community players. Not a beginner class.

Meet Your Mentor: Bryson Borgstedt

Bryson Borgstedt's resume is a roadmap of American music. From his tenure with the USMA Jazz Knights at West Point to performing with Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, and The Manhattan Transfer, he has spent decades at the highest level of the industry. He has served as Director of Jazz at Claflin University and on the faculty at Presbyterian College and the University of South Carolina, and he remains committed to the art of teaching.

Also performed with: Josh Groban · Nancy Wilson · Wycliffe Gordon · The SC Philharmonic · The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra · the Broadway production of Chicago — and dozens more.