B. Tadesse

Besufekad Tadesse (Besu, The Bus) was born in Washington, DC, on January 4, 1982. He has been playing the saxophone since the age of 9. However, his passion for music began at the age of 6, when he was introduced to the wonders of the small plastic recorder and the larger wooden marimba. Throughout high school, Besu performed in several musical groups, as a saxophonist in the jazz band, an oboist in the symphonic ensembles, and as a drum major of the marching band.Years later, Besu played in various shows at Cornell University with such jazz greats as Joe Chambers, Jimmy Heath, and Dave Holland. After enrolling at University of Maryland for a second degree in Mathematics, he joined the band Sugoi, a well-established blues-rock jam band in the D.C. area, in the summer of 2005, after a quick check through Craigslist.Though Sugoi has been disbanded since 2006, Besu still composes and produces his own music in the D.C. Metro area, as well as writing poetry and practicing photography and freehand sketching in his spare time. Currently, Besu works as a statistician for the U.S. Census Bureau and attends business school at the University of Maryland.