Director, UMBC Athletic Bands 2019-2021
Costas is an UMBC alumnus who holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Master of Science in Engineering Management with an emphasis on Computer Science. He is also a certified Project Management Professional.
C-Dizzy, C-Dawg, and El Capitan are all nicknames he has earned throughout a musical journey that began with a choice between violin and trumpet in the 4th grade. While there have been detours into bass guitar, drums, and vocals since then, he continues to prefer trumpet as the traditional leader of the band. He has performed with the UMBC Jazz Ensemble, Concert Band, and Wind Ensemble, rocked the house for over a dozen years in the UMBC Down and Dirty Dawg Band, and even found time to create and run 3 different original music groups, 1 of which made it to the quarterfinals at the Emergenza Music Festival.
While his day job involves technical consulting, he likes to keep up with his music chops and is always looking to get the band back together! That interest brought him back to the DDDB to take over as director for the 2019-2020 season that ultimately ended in pandemic lockdown. While it was a crazy time, the band didn’t waver, and even though there was no band in 2020-2021 due to the pandemic, he was able to keep it alive and prepare for yet another transition to new leadership for the 2021-2022 first year back on campus.
Costas was a trumpet player in the band for more than a dozen years through undergraduate and graduate school. Being a member of the band had a profound impact on his college experience. He was exposed to the true spirit of UMBC, became good friends with many members, earned money through the stipend program, fulfilled graduation requirements through course credit, and became a better musician by being exposed to a variety of musical styles and countless performing opportunities.