Brian Horton, celebrated jazz educator, saxophonist and composer at NCCU, has died

The director of N.C. Central University’s Jazz Studies program and its acclaimed jazz ensemble has died, the university announced Friday.

Brian Horton was 46 and died of natural causes, the department’s interim chair, Lenora Helm Hammonds, said.

Horton, originally from Kinston, had recently led NCCU’s ensemble to a top-three finish at a competition of the country’s best-regarded university jazz programs at Lincoln Center in New York City.

In addition to his role as assistant professor in the university’s Department of Music, Horton was a composer and saxophonist.

He collaborated with some of the biggest names in jazz, among them Clark Terry, and stars in other fields, such as the rapper Snoop Dogg, according to his professional biography.

Artists of all kinds and community members mourned Horton’s death on social media.

Writer Isaac Hughes Green said on Twitter that Horton was “an extremely talented musician — someone I enjoyed having brief conversations with between sets at local jazz clubs. I took a lot of inspiration from him as a teaching artist.”

Designer Rachel Stewart wrote that she “had the honor & pleasure of working with him on his album cover years ago may he rest in peace, he was a dedicated and brilliant musician.”

“His loss is immeasurable,” Isrea Butler, the former chair of NCCU’s Music Department, wrote on Facebook.

Horton was “very serious and very hardworking, a brilliant musician and arranger, really focused on on developing the students,” Butler said in an interview.

The NCCU ensemble’s third-place finish at the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship in New York was a testament to his leadership, said Butler, who hired Horton at NCCU.

“A little small HBCU up against the legacy institutions of jazz — schools like Temple and Indiana University, schools with big budgets and able to draw the top students — that was incredible,” he said.

NorthStar Church of the Arts has announced a community event to honor Horton at 7 p.m. Tuesday at 220 W. Geer St. in Durham.

Students can call the NCCU Counseling Center’s 24-hour line at 919-530-7646. The university has additional resources available for faculty and staff.

This story was originally published September 17, 2022 at 1:03 PM.