Raffi Garabedian

Raffi Garabedian is a tenor saxophonist and composer living in Oakland, California. A dedicated improvisationalist, Garabedian utilizes spontaneous composition to create sonic atmospheres in which different perspectives on rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic progression can take shape. Garabedian’s compositional work remains strongly informed by his relationship with improvisation, a relationship which expresses itself in unique ways. His second record, Melodies in Silence, was marked in part by the remote nature of its recording, which opened new avenues in terms of production and processing. A record in part of grief and loneliness, Melodies in Silence allowed Garabedian to deepen and broaden the possibilities for composition and playing communal music when alone. On 2024’s The Crazy Dog, Garabedian began writing for voice—which he treated as a part of the horn section—in part of a cross-generational effort to bring his own, his father’s, and his grandmother’s voices into one piece of art. The result is what Downbeat calls a “deeply personal and musically inventive” work, full of “complex, contrapuntal ambitions.”

Garabedian was born and raised in Berkeley, California, and attended the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, from which he received a BFA in Jazz Performance. He has toured extensively—both at the helm of his own projects, and as a member of other groups—and has played and recorded with luminaries such as Jorge Rossy, Ben Street, Dayna Stephens, and Johnny Talbot. Garabedian also plays in several projects in and around the Bay Area, including Insect Life—a group focusing on collective improvisation, with Ben Goldberg (clarinet), Danny Lubin-Laden (trombone), Ben Davis (cello), and Gerald Cleaver (drums)—and Sticklerphonics, again with Lubin-Laden, and Scott Amendola (drums).

In addition to his music practice, Garabedian is a seasoned educator, and is on the jazz saxophone faculty at Sonoma State University, while teaching at Berkeley High School. He has taught regularly at the California Jazz Conservatory, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, and works with private students.

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