Attend any event at Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA), and among the sea of students and teachers, something will instantly catch your eye: the glistening bald head of multi-talented musician, Spanish teacher, fantasy author, and alleged fashion designer Brennan Colson (‘15).

Once a guitar major at BSA, the wind has taken Colson unexpected directions, from Towson to Texas and back again. Through it all, he’s learned Italian and Welsh, maintained a reasonable practice schedule for the guitar, and written a young adult fantasy novel.

Upon returning to BSA last year to teach Spanish, Colson quickly introduced his humor and absurdity into a sea of stresses and worries, earning the respect of many students. I met him in room 506, where last year he taught me and many others the intricacies of the vast Colson Universe: here’s an edited version of our conversation.

(Goeke): Sr. Colson – or, Beyonce – or, Mr. Clean – it’s easy to say you’re iconic. You’re the youngest and newest academic teacher at BSA, and already you’ve captivated the ever-capricious student body. How did you do it? Are the nicknames just the trick?

(Colson): [Laughs] The nicknames are a byproduct, yeah. I just become my old self from high school, and it works.

I think your clothing line “Colsonwear” perfectly embodies your humor. How did that happen?

It’s a luxury clothing brand, let’s get that right. It’s kind of expensive, but that’s how it is. Last year, when we started learning clothing and shopping vocabulary, I just decided in the moment to say, “You can get this, this design is available now at colsonwear.com.” I went with it and everyone started playing along so well.

So, this is a new business, a new entrepreneurship. I have many endeavors, and none of them are real. This is all part of the Colson Universe.

I mean, someone even made a website for you.

Yes, Theo Anderson [Music ‘27] did, and it’s still active. You can still go to that website. I even hyperlinked it in my PowerPoint this year.

You started here at BSA in 2011, and you were a guitarist. Why guitar?

Well, what happened was actually interesting. Before auditioning, I took guitar lessons for two years, but when I auditioned, at that point, I hadn’t been playing with my fingers yet. I was still using a pick. The weekend right before my audition, I was like, “Crap, I gotta learn something from my audition.” So my parents said, “Go to your bedroom, you can’t leave your bedroom until you practice this and get it down.”

I played some arrangement of “Für Elise” on the guitar. Then, they had me sight read, and there were multiple voices, so I had to use my fingers. So, I just put my pick down and figured it out in the moment, and I guess that worked?

And your teachers were the same music teachers who are still here?

Yeah, [music faculty] Dr. Hardy, Ms. Green, and Dr. Edwards. A lot of the private lesson teachers are still the same. It’s really strange working with them now, and some academic teachers are the same teachers that I had in high school, which is also really strange. I cannot use their first name, I can’t…

[Laughs] So you just see them at work parties and you’re like, “Hello, Ms. Bacon.”

Exactly, exactly. I have to use their, you know, “title.”

I remember last year when we would be doing tests, you’d sit and compose random violin sonatas and whatnot. You studied composition with Dr. Hardy?

I did a little bit, we had a good relationship. Every once in a while, I’d show him something new and say, “What do you think,” and we’d talk about it a little bit. I still compose, do lots of stuff. Check out my SoundCloud. Gotta plug it!

Do you still play guitar, and possibly other instruments?

Yes, guitar, and I’ve taken up violin, piano, and viola. I have a cello that I can’t play yet, but I will. Basically, any instrument I see, I’m like, “Oh, I wanna play that.”

And you still practice?

I do practice, you have to practice. I’m currently in rehearsals on the weekends, at Towson, doing a guitar duo. It’s a new commissioned work, we’re gonna record it and have a concert in March, so that’s very cool.

Numerous students lamented to me, “We’ve never seen him play!” Could we get a clip of you performing, either a recital or some recent performance?

Yeah, I’ll see if I can find something. The only problem is the last recording I have is when I had hair.

Is the bald a fashion choice? That’s another question I heard from students.

[Laughs] It’s not a fashion choice, it’s more of a necessity. Or, I guess I should say, a curse. It’s really to save everyone’s eyes from a comb over.

I was in your very first class last year, your first period, and I was very shocked by how well-prepared and structured your class was at the start of the year, despite being at a completely new school. Where did you teach before?

I taught at a boarding school just outside of Houston, Texas for three years. That was my first gig after I graduated.

And when you came to BSA, did you have to adapt the materials you had?

Yeah, it was tough. What I ended up doing was kind of overhauling the curriculum, and I just made new materials. It was quite the year, I was just spending all my time making new slideshows, making new assignments, making new projects, that kind of thing. It was a lot of work, but now I get to reuse a lot of it.

Did you go into Spanish right after BSA?

I did my degree in music and another degree in Spanish. When I was in high school, I took four years of Spanish. I went along the honors track, and I had a fantastic teacher, Sr. Tabegna. He retired right after I graduated college. But, by the end of the four years, all of us in that class were approaching fluency, because he was such a great teacher. So I was like, “I like this. I’ve always been interested in language, so I’ll just keep going in college and see where that takes me. Maybe I can do something with the Spanish degree.” A music degree is kind of limiting sometimes.

I’ve always thought about being a teacher. I wasn’t shooting for that the whole time, but it was always on my mind as a possibility, so I went for it.

When you were applying to colleges, was guitar performance initially at the front of your mind? What pushed you towards languages?

Abby [BSA’s college counselor] is gonna kill me – I only applied to three colleges. At one point, I thought, “I want to study at the Madrid Royal Conservatory in Spain, I can do guitar and Spanish there.” But I didn’t end up doing that. Instead, I auditioned at Peabody, and I got in – but I couldn’t afford it.

I also applied to Towson and George Mason. The guitar teacher at Towson, Troy King, is the husband of my guitar teacher I had here when I was at BSA. So I had studied with him before because he filled in when my teacher, Mrs. Murray, was on maternity leave.

We knew each other, and I got a pretty large scholarship to study at Towson, so that’s where I went, and I said, “I’m just gonna do both music and Spanish.”

I heard from some other staff members that you don’t only study Spanish. Do you also study other languages?

Yes, to the point of obsession. If you saw my bookshelf… 50% of my books are language books, and I guarantee you I have over 600 books in my apartment. I don’t know how the floor hasn’t collapsed by now.

I’ve studied many, many languages, but one of my strongest ones is Italian, which I learned in one year. In college, I wanted to take this one class about Italian opera, but the class was in Italian, so I was like, “Oh, I just have to learn Italian to take this class.” The year before that class was offered to me, I studied Italian on my own and out of a book. Had a conversation with the chair of the Italian department, and she was like, “Yeah, you can take it.” And I won distinction in writing for a paper I did, in Italian, about this one Mozart aria.

I also study a lot of Welsh, been doing that for quite a while. It’s very different. I mean, one of my favorite things is just looking at grammars, because I love grammar and etymology, which is finding out where words come from. So, if you name a language, I probably have a book on my shelf and have tried to study it: Polish, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, everything.

Aside from teaching Spanish, what are you involved in within the BSA community?

Well, I was the narrator in the chorus concert last year, for Cloudburst [a composition for choir, percussion, and narrator]. That was cool because, I think it was my freshman year here, we also did Cloudburst, and my Spanish teacher did the narration part. So, it was really cool to do that.

I’ve been really busy with everything going on. I’m looking to keep getting involved with the music department and maybe some Expressions stuff.

Would you ever go teach music theory or music literature?

Please, I would love it, totally.

You talked about your obsession with language and grammar. Naturally, you wrote a fantasy book.

I did! I wrote a novel, it’s currently in the second draft stage.

When did you write it?

Actually, the idea came about because of some compositions on my SoundCloud. So I had this idea: a temple floating in the sky, and a kid going up to that temple and figuring out what the heck it is and what he’s doing there. I tried to write some music that would go along with that, like him seeing the temple, getting lost and seeing this shadowy figure that’s chasing him.

Later, I was like, “I should turn this into a book,” because I’ve always wanted to write a book, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. So in July, I was like, “I’m just gonna write it.” I sat down and wrote the whole thing by the seat of my pants. Didn’t plan anything, just kept writing, kept writing, and I finished the first draft in December.

That’s very exciting. Do you want to get it to a publisher?

Oh, of course. So, I’m obsessing over every single word, getting it razor sharp.

You like writing, you study languages, and you practice. What else dominates your free time, especially in the summer?

Every summer I work at a summer camp, Camp Heritage in Catonsville. I’ve been at that camp since I was in first grade, and I went all the way through the camp as a camper: I went through the counselor-in-training program, and then I became a counselor. So, I’ve been there for eighteen years.

After school, recently, every free minute I have, I’m writing and working on this draft. But, one of the first things I do when I go home is I just sit at the piano, play around a little bit, look at a new piece or something. It’s easy because you just sit down, start, and have fun.

Do you wish you could have done your career differently, going more towards guitar performance, or are you happy where you are?

I’m happy where I am, and I don’t regret my choices because, ultimately, they’ve helped shape me into who I am right now. I’ve gained a lot of insight: I’ve learned a lot from my students, and I just love working with high school students in particular. We have our banter, and we can joke around, play around a little bit.

Teaching has also helped me with my social skills. I was always a very shy kid, but teaching has really brought me out of my shell – so has performing. I like where I’ve been, and though it hasn’t always been easy, I’m here now, looking forward to what’s next.

I’ve seen a number of your classes, and you always inspire this deep mutual respect between you and your students, which isn’t always the case with teaching. How do you set up that positive relationship with your students?

You know, respect is a two way street. I meet the kids where they are. The very first thing I do is build a relationship with the students. Especially in the beginning of the year, I’m not necessarily as worried about getting into content and stuff like that. I think there’s no purpose in teaching the content if there’s no relationship with the kids, because that’s what gets them to buy into the class or the content. So, I’ll just be myself, I’ll be really silly. That’s my personality.

What’s next for Sr. Colson?

What is next… Well, step one, surviving the school year. I’m telling you, teachers and students have the same step one. I’m laser focused on finishing this book. I go home, and I start writing.

But what’s next? I don’t know – we’ll see where the wind takes me. I’m not so much of a planner. I’m more, I don’t wanna say impulsive, but rather “go with the flow.” I just let that guide me.

This is an edited version of a conversation from February 5th, 2025.

To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.

Featured photo by Ethan Jusem for The Muse.