Outstanding Leadership in Queens
2020 Honoree of the Queens Federation of Churches

Bryan Carrott

For the last 16 years, Prof. Bryan Carrott, a native of Queens Village, has served as coordinator of percussion instruction at Five Towns College, while also instructing classes in keyboard skills, world music, and percussion ensemble. Bryan’s experience in music teaching began over 30 years ago at the Alvanos Piano School in Queens Village, where he taught classes under the direction of his former piano teacher, the late Claire Alvanos, until the school’s closing in 2015. For most of those years, he has also performed in schools throughout New York City, and Nassau & Suffolk Counties, most notably in the Revels-Bey Music Ensemble, led by percussionist & educator, Napoleon Revels-Bey.

Coinciding with his education experience, Bryan has performed & recorded as jazz vibraphonist and percussionist on over 75 recordings of artists as diverse as David ‘Fathead’ Newman, Freddie Cole (Nat King Cole’s baby brother), and Jay-Z. He has performed in over 20 countries and in renown venues such as Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center, as well as on several movie soundtracks and on Broadway’s production of the Lion King. Bryan has also been a featured soloist with Cologne, Germany’s WDR Orchestra, the Princeton University Big Band, and the Five Towns College Symphonic Wind Ensemble. In 2006, he was a guest vibraphone instructor at the Ju Percussion Summer Camp in Taipei, Taiwan. In 2015, he received top honor as Rising Star in Down Beat Magazine’s International Critics Poll.

Bryan’s involvement with the church has been a lifelong experience. As an adult he has served on several youth and adult renewal retreats over the years, which is how he also began his experience in Christian contemporary worship music. As a member of the Bridge for Peace Ministry, Bryan has served several times on mission teams in Kenya & Uganda, East Africa, Jamaica, West Indies, and Brazil, South America. He has had the joy to perform benefit concerts, raising funds to contribute to the growing Bridge for Peace ministry project, Children’s Village, which houses and educates orphaned children in Uganda.

Currently, Bryan serves as drummer, keyboardist and worship leader at the Church of the Intercessor in Malverne, Long Island, where he and his wife Audrey have attended and served for 20 years. To God be all the glory, for the things He has done!