Joseph Guimaraes

About Joseph Guimaraes

Brazilian-born musician Joseph Augusto Guimaraes immigrated to the United States at age nine and began musical studies at eleven. He joined the United States Navy Band, the premier wind ensemble of the U.S. Navy, in 2020 and became the Principal Tuba Player of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra in 2021. He has collaborated as a guest tubist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. 

Guimaraes earned the silver medal at the Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival artist division competition (2019) and the first prize at the Northeast Regional Tuba and Euphonium Conference solo competition (2016). He has soloed with the Florida Atlantic University Band and Orchestra, the Blue Lake Festival Band, and the James Madison University Brass Band and appeared as a featured artist with the Lynn University Wind Ensemble.

He served as the Principal Tuba Fellow for the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in Sapporo, Japan, and the Chautauqua Music Festival Orchestra in Chautauqua, New York. Guimaraes dedicated more than a decade to the marching arts, competing as a member of the Spirit from Jacksonville State University Drum and Bugle Corps and marching with and teaching the Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps.

Guimaraes maintains an active recital schedule, with recent performances during the U.S. Army Band’s Tuba and Euphonium Workshop and the Mid-West Regional Tuba and Euphonium Conference. 

He served a short-term lecturer appointment at the Yale School of Music and a one-year visiting appointment at Appalachian State University’s Hayes School of Music. Guimaraes has adjudicated the artist division of the Leonard Falcone International Competition, the Sphinx Orchestral Partners Audition in Detroit, Michigan, the U.S. Navy Band/Sphinx Orchestral Partners Audition Intensive in Washington, D.C., and for the USBands competition circuit.

In 2017, Guimaraes received the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans for his philanthropic efforts in placing used brass instruments in the hands of underserved populations in the United States and abroad. With the aid of the Sphinx Organization’s MPower Artist Grant (2023), he broadened his efforts to decrease systemic inequities and educational disparities by developing a video series on tuba pedagogy in English and Portuguese. His dedication to the arts and views on music education’s inherent importance across socio-economic lines has garnered national attention from publications including The New York Times, The New American, Yale University News, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Guimaraes holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Georgia, a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Lynn University Conservatory of Music. 

His primary teachers include David Zerkel, Carol Jantsch, Kenneth Amis, and Jay Bertolet.