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Michael Webster

"Michael Webster's creations are long, unfurling musical journeys chock full of content. Singable melodies come swathed in a background of advanced, modern harmonies and adventurous, challenging rhythms." -The Ottawa Citizen

About Me

Saxophonist/composer/arranger Michael Webster has been featured in the JVC Jazz Festival (NYC), the Downtown Jazz Festival (Toronto), Beaches Jazz Festival (Toronto) and the Ottawa International Jazz Festival. His compositions have been played by Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell & Arturo O’Farrill at Birdland and by John Benitez at the Blue Note in New York City.

In March 2008 Michael made his conducting debut at Symphony Space in New York, where Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra performed his commissioned piece “Mombogro”.

Michael appears regularly with the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada (Ottawa) as an orchestral saxophonist, and has been a featured soloist in this capacity with John Pizzarelli, Doc Severinsen, Barbara Cooke, Lou Rawls, Ian Tyson, Glen Campbell & Carol Welsman.

In September 2005 Michael recorded his debut CD as a leader, “Leading Lines”. The album presents 8 original works, including the centerpiece “Horizons” for jazz nonet, woodwind quintet & strings, as well as a 7/4 clave version of Irving Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean”, entitled “Seven Seas”. Featured are John Benitez on bass, trumpeter Michael Rodriguez, saxophonist/flautist Erica vonKleist and Gordon Webster on piano.