Bass Trombone

Zac Hollister has served over 19 years in the U.S. Navy as a Concert/Ceremonial bass trombonist with both the U.S. Navy Band in Washington, D.C. and Naval Academy Band. He has appeared as a soloist, clinician and in recordings, on national tours including as a substitute with the Commodores Jazz Ensemble, and in hundreds of full honors funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery. With Navy Music, Zac has performed live on NPR's Prairie Home Companion, on the Today Show in New York City, at the Norwegian Military Tattoo in Oslo, several shows at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, in concerts collaborating with Grammy Award winners Eighth Blackbird and Mannheim Steamroller, for ship commissioning ceremonies in Philadelphia for the USS Somerset and USS Wayne E. Meyer--and in Baltimore for the USS Zumwalt, for JFK100 at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, alongside members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Band from Tokyo at the U.S. Residence of the Japanese Ambassador, at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, at eight Army vs. Navy football games (Navy is 8-0 in those games btw) and participated in the U.S. Navy Band’s first ever performances in Asia, including a solo performance at the WASBE Conference in Gwangju-Gyeonggi and a concert at the War Memorial in Seoul, South Korea. Just in the DC/Baltimore region, he has played at such venues as the White House, Pentagon, U.S. Capitol, Navy Memorial, Naval Observatory, Naval Academy, Naval War College, WWII Memorial, Sylvan Theater, Blues Alley, Strathmore, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards; as well as for U.S. Presidental inaugurations, state funerals, White House arrival ceremonies for the Prime Ministers of Japan and Australia, at a televised event honoring Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, and a Naval Academy Formal Parade for Astronauts Neil Armstrong and James Lovell.

As a freelance musician, Zac has performed as a substitute with the Boston Pops, the Baltimore, Harrisburg, Annapolis, Delaware, Maryland, and Vermont Symphony Orchestras, the National, Rhode Island, and Boston Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra; as well as with the Triton Brass Quintet, Clipper City Brass Quintet, Washington Trombone Ensemble, and Monomoy Theatre. He performs regularly with the Apollo Orchestra, and was previously a member of the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra and the Brass of the Potomac. He has performed shows at Monomoy Theatre on Cape Cod, with the Callithumpian Consort, and the Waitiki 7, as well as recording the music for the 'Price of Freedom: Americans at War' exhibition video on display at the Gehring Center of the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History. As a bass trombonist in big bands, Zac has performed with Bob Brookmeyer, Dave Samuels, Wayne Bergeron, Steve Wilson, and Roberto Quintero, as well as for band leaders Chris Vadala, Darcy James Argue, and George Russell.

A California native, primarily raised in Pittsburgh and Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, Zac holds a Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and a Master of Music degree from the University of Maryland. He additionally attended Le Domaine Forget Music Academy in Quebec, Canada. He studied trombone with Douglas Yeo, Matthew Guilford, Murray Crewe, and Carl Jackson.