Bob Brookmeyer, composer, arranger, trombonist, pianist, and director of the New England Conservatory Jazz Composers Workshop Orchestra, has been named a 2006 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. The award carries with it a $25,000 fellowship and invitations to participate in outreach efforts, broadcasts, and NEA Jazz Masters On Tour. Brookmeyer joins other present and past NEC faculty and alumni on the Jazz Masters list including George Russell and Cecil Taylor.
From 1982 through 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has designated eighty-seven artists of American music as NEA Jazz Masters, based on nominations submitted by the public. The program is part of an ongoing NEA project to support jazz artists and organizations that since 1970 has distributed
millions of dollars in grants and awards. In conjunction with Jazz Masters’ designation, the NEA has also initiated a 50-state NEA Jazz Masters tour with performances and educational activities, television and radio programming and a compilation CD produced by Verve Music Group.
Born in Kansas City, MO in 1929, Bob Brookmeyer studied composition at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Arriving in New York in 1952, he played with Claude Thornhill, Woody Herman, Teddy Charles, and Charles Mingus. In 1953, he joined Stan Getz, followed by stints with Gerry Mulligan, the Jimmy Giuffre Three and his own quintet with Clark Terry. Brookmeyer played and composed for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra beginning with its founding in 1965, and after ten years in California returned as musical director for Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra.
Since 1981 he has been very active as composer, conductor, teacher, and performer in Europe, working in both classical and jazz idioms. His work as a composer has been recognized with a succession of NEA jazz composition grants. In 1994 he was appointed musical director of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Big Band, a worldwide jazz-based ensemble dedicated to new music. This ensemble served as the nucleus for Brookmeyer’s 18-piece New Art Orchestra, which began touring in 2001. With that band, Brookmeyer has made three CDs on the Challenge label, New Works which was CD of the year in England, Waltzing with Zoë and Get Well Soon, which was nominated for a Grammy. Brookmeyer was commissioned by The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic to write a piece for an EMI CD, featuring the German trumpet player, Till Broenner. He is currently at work on a concert length piece, Spirit Music, for the New Art Orchestra, to be recorded in January 2006.
Brookmeyer will next lead the NEC Jazz Composers Workshop Orchestra in a concert December 13 in Brown Hall.
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.
From 1982 through 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has designated eighty-seven artists of American music as NEA Jazz Masters, based on nominations submitted by the public. The program is part of an ongoing NEA project to support jazz artists and organizations that since 1970 has distributed
millions of dollars in grants and awards. In conjunction with Jazz Masters’ designation, the NEA has also initiated a 50-state NEA Jazz Masters tour with performances and educational activities, television and radio programming and a compilation CD produced by Verve Music Group.
Born in Kansas City, MO in 1929, Bob Brookmeyer studied composition at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Arriving in New York in 1952, he played with Claude Thornhill, Woody Herman, Teddy Charles, and Charles Mingus. In 1953, he joined Stan Getz, followed by stints with Gerry Mulligan, the Jimmy Giuffre Three and his own quintet with Clark Terry. Brookmeyer played and composed for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra beginning with its founding in 1965, and after ten years in California returned as musical director for Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra.
Since 1981 he has been very active as composer, conductor, teacher, and performer in Europe, working in both classical and jazz idioms. His work as a composer has been recognized with a succession of NEA jazz composition grants. In 1994 he was appointed musical director of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Big Band, a worldwide jazz-based ensemble dedicated to new music. This ensemble served as the nucleus for Brookmeyer’s 18-piece New Art Orchestra, which began touring in 2001. With that band, Brookmeyer has made three CDs on the Challenge label, New Works which was CD of the year in England, Waltzing with Zoë and Get Well Soon, which was nominated for a Grammy. Brookmeyer was commissioned by The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic to write a piece for an EMI CD, featuring the German trumpet player, Till Broenner. He is currently at work on a concert length piece, Spirit Music, for the New Art Orchestra, to be recorded in January 2006.
Brookmeyer will next lead the NEC Jazz Composers Workshop Orchestra in a concert December 13 in Brown Hall.
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
