Major Jason Burcham joined the Royal Marines as a pianist and cornet player at the Royal Marines School of Music, Deal in 1986.
Director of Music
On completion of training, he worked with the bands of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines at Lympstone, the Staff Band Royal Marines School of Music at Deal and the Band of the Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command in Portsmouth, which brought with it promotion and the opportunity to serve on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Onboard Britannia he performed for historic occasions such as the State Visits to Russia in 1994 and South Africa in 1995 and the D-Day 60th anniversary commemorative events.
Following his sea-time Jason was assigned to the Royal Marines School of Music, now in Portsmouth, as piano instructor. During this time he was selected to attend the Bandmasters’ Course for which he was awarded the Silver Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
In 2001 Jason was promoted to WO2 Bandmaster for the deployment of a band especially formed to deploy to Kosovo with 3 Commando Brigade. It was during this deployment that he successfully passed the Admiralty Interview Board and was subsequently commissioned in April 2001.
His training as Director of Music was at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich where he studied conducting under tuition of Peter Stark and the mentorship of Tadaaki Otaka and Sir Charles Mackerras. Jason was selected to represent Trinity College at the Erasmus Conducting Course in Lithuania and was recipient of the Ricordi Conducting Prize.
His first appointment was as Director of Music to the Band at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines which was followed by a Staff Appointment in the Directorate Royal Marines during which time he was employed as the Royal Marines Casualty Officer. Following promotion to Major, in August 2007, he took up his appointment as Staff Officer Band Service at Headquarters Band Service Royal Marines before deploying to Afghanistan as Adjutant of the United Kingdom Joint Force Medical Group. His current assignment is to the newly-formed Band of HM Royal Marines Collingwood.
Jason is married to Veryan, a serving Royal Navy officer, and has two children, Honor and Rory.
