Bruce Ayers’ musical journey began at age 4 with an old upright piano that sat in his grandparents’ home in Dover, Delaware, where he grew up.
“That piano is still there, still out of tune,” said Ayers, 34, who joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2020, where he works part time in the Neurology Clinic as a patient services specialist. Ayers is also engaged at two of Nashville’s universities, teaching music at Tennessee State University while completing a doctorate in organizational leadership at Trevecca Nazarene University.
In 2019, Ayers conceived and founded the 70-member Nashville African American Wind Symphony, or NAAWS. With a slate of concerts, and with Ayers as conductor, musical director and CEO, the band has garnered support from arts funders in Nashville and beyond.
Ayers has been recognized by the Nashville Business Journal as among the city’s younger movers and shakers, appearing on their list of “40 Under 40” for 2024.
For someone on his way to becoming a composer and conductor, being drawn to piano at age 4 sounds about right.
“I was like, ‘Oh, shoot. This is actually going to happen. Where are we going to rehearse?’ And, unless you’re a professional musician, people don’t typically own tubas and oboes and bassoons and French horns and euphoniums.”
“I started playing by ear. To me it was music, to everyone else it was just noise. My grandmother would say, ‘Boy, stop banging on that piano.’ And my grandfather would say, ‘Let him keep playing, this might turn into something for him.’ I can still hear those words.”
One day at the piano, a 5-year-old Ayers played the theme song from his grandfather’s favorite TV show, “Little House on the Prairie.” So, his parents enrolled him in music classes.
Ayers’ aunts, uncles, older siblings and cousins marched in their school bands.
He was in second grade when he got his first trumpet. In high school Ayers switched to euphonium (“looks like a very small tuba but sounds like a very big French horn”). His euphonium playing would earn Ayers scholarships to college and grad school.
Years later Ayers took his bow at the conclusion of the first NAAWS concert, a Juneteenth 2021 performance at Belmont University in Nashville.
“The entire audience of about 450 people were on their feet,” he said.
The program included a piece Ayers had written for the band, “Journey,” depicting stations of his musical and personal development.
“It was my song, performed with the symphony that I had created — it makes me emotional talking about it right now. I don’t take it lightly that I’ve been blessed with a vision that has allowed me to play a part in changing people’s lives through my music.”
By the time he finished his master’s program, Ayers had become sensitive to the issue of underrepresentation of Blacks in classical music.
In high school, having won first chair in the euphonium section of Delaware’s all-state band, Ayers found himself mulling whether to go to college to study music or instead enroll in his local community college for an associate degree in culinary arts, another passion of his. He had by age 12 taken an interest in the kitchen, his cooking a hit with family and friends.
But music won out.
Ayers studied music at historically Black Virginia State University. “I knew I wanted to get out of Delaware, but beyond that it was really just a question of whichever college was going to give me the most money.” He later earned a master’s in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in music from TSU, also an historically Black university.
Music and identity
In high school Ayers had been one of very few Black students in Delaware’s all-state band.
“It wasn’t a problem to me. I didn’t think about those things. Those are my friends; we all just loved music.
“College was the first time in a musical setting where everybody looked like me.”
By the time he finished his master’s program, Ayers had become sensitive to the issue of underrepresentation of Blacks in classical music. Through college and grad school, he had taken part in classical music ensembles outside of school — symphonies, orchestras and recording sessions — where he happened to be the only Black, or one of only two or three Blacks.
“I knew I wanted to make a difference. That’s kind of how this organization got started.”
Ayers says he acted when he couldn’t sleep any longer, and forming the band was all he could think about. The first thing he did was create an email account for the band. “I put together some polls, and I sent out messages. It was extremely informal — email, Facebook messages, Instagram messages, contacting people through LinkedIn.”
Responses began pouring in within days.
“I was like, ‘Oh, shoot. This is actually going to happen. Where are we going to rehearse?’ And, unless you’re a professional musician, people don’t typically own tubas and oboes and bassoons and French horns and euphoniums.”
“Amazing Grace” was amazingly bad — at first
NAAWS held its first rehearsal three years ago. Through the intercession of Ayers’ mentor at the TSU music department, Associate Professor Reginal McDonald, EdD, the university provided instrument loans and rehearsal space. “It was come one, come all. People came in and I said, ‘All right guys, I’m Bruce. Let’s see what we sound like.'”
The first tune they tried was “Amazing Grace.” Ayers laughs recounting this baptism.
“When the downbeat dropped, I was like, ‘What have I gotten myself into? This is incorrect. This is insane. This is terrible.’
“It was the worst. I had people in that very first rehearsal who hadn’t picked up an instrument in well over 10 years.”
They go on the road for one concert each year. Their next concert is in Atlanta in April at the Historic Black Colleges and Universities National Band and Orchestra Directors’ Consortium. In June they’re back in Nashville at Schermerhorn Symphony Center for their annual performance in celebration of Juneteenth.
But the band eventually jelled.
“Once we started rehearsing more frequently, got a few performances under our belt, it just changed. It just took a minute to kind of get that flow going.”
As the band began performing, more musicians asked to join. Members onstage for the first performance were grandfathered in, but subsequent applicants have been subject to formal audition. It’s an NAAWS requirement that players have a bachelor’s degree. Among the members are lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and social workers.
“Music is my purpose in this life”
NAAWS rehearses weekly year-round and gives four concerts a year featuring pieces written for wind symphony and transcriptions from both the symphonic repertoire and popular music. They go on the road for one concert each year. Their next concert is in Atlanta in April at the Historic Black Colleges and Universities National Band and Orchestra Directors’ Consortium. In June they’re back in Nashville at Schermerhorn Symphony Center for their annual performance in celebration of Juneteenth.
Ayers has turned over fundraising to a professional. Among the band’s many supporters and partners are Metro Arts Nashville, the Tennessee Arts Commission, Nashville Predators Foundation, the National Museum of African American Music, Argosy Foundation, Frist Art Museum and Schermerhorn Symphony Center. As for educational programing, the NAAWS Youth Honor Band, sponsored by Metro Arts Nashville, gathers annually for three days of rehearsal capped by a performance.
“This organization has grown legs of its own. I’m trying to keep up with it.”
What has forming and leading a 70-member wind symphony taught Ayers?
“It taught me that if you have goals, dreams, vision, then you have to act on it. I believe that it comes from God. That’s my personal belief.
“I used to have what’s come to be called impostor syndrome. It’s easy for me to say, ‘I can’t do it.’ But because there are now so many people that depend on me, I have to be strong.”
Ayers will finish his doctoral program next year and plans afterward to continue his work with the wind symphony.
“Music is my purpose in this life. And the fact that I get to create music and share my music with whoever will listen is the best feeling ever. And I wish everyone could experience that feeling.”
