Results for "Composer/arranger"

Rita di Ghent

Rita di Ghent is a musician, lyricist, and composer born in Hamilton, Ontario and comes from many generations of artists. She invented a jazz composing approach called “Sprawl” and was nominated for the Montreal Jazz Festival Prix de Jazz for her originality. di Ghent has also been nominated twice for “Jazz Singer of the Year” (National Jazz Awards). She started her independent record label (Groove/Groove Classic) in 1994. di Ghent has toured world-wide with her ground-breaking approach to jazz. Devoted to empowering others–in particular women–Rita created “The New Moon Sister Society”, regularly facilitating gatherings on Creativity, Storytelling, and teachings in Folk Tales and Traditional Stories.

Christopher Boscole

Born: March 9

Composer and arranger Christopher Boscole plays piano, keyboards, and soprano saxophone.  He has produced 14 albums that cross over in a variety of genres and formats - original piano solos in improvisational, new age , folk, pop, and classical styles, jazz piano trio and sextet, contemporary instrumental jazz ensembles with synthesizers and vocals, and latest upcoming release “Time for Love” - classic love songs featuring vocals, sax, and guitar.

Boscole's music has seen years of long term charting in top 10 airplay on new age radio, Sirius, Pandora, Spotify, Musak, I tunes, You tube, and other formats. He grew up in a musical household as his mother was a singer and piano teacher. After learning music basics from his mother, he studied classical piano for years with Mikiko Miyamoto, winning honors at adjudications. Christopher studied saxophone with Bill Wicker and played sax and piano in school jazz groups and later pop music and rock n roll as he worked for years as a pianist and keyboardist with a variety of artists/bands in Seattle including Diane Schuur, Phil Sheeran, Michael Powers, Jay Thomas, Top 40 Bands - Modern Dance, Yankee, and Impala USO Air Force show tour.

Levi Saelua

Born: May 17, 1990

Levi began his musical studies at age 6 with the Sacramento Taiko Dan under the direction of Sensei Tiffany Tamaribuchi. At age 9, he began studying saxophone and, five years later, arranged his first piece for jazz combo while attending Rio Americano High School. Upon graduating from Rio Americano's internationally distinguished jazz program, Levi furthered his music education at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, studying saxophone with Chien-Kwan Lin, Jose Encarnacion, and Charles Pillow, and jazz composition with Bill Dobbins and Dave Rivello. As a student at Eastman, Levi had the opportunity to work with artists such as Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Schneider, Bill Holman, Ryan Truesdell, Jeff Beal, and many others

Hakan Brostrom

Born: 1955

Born in Motala, Sweden, in 1955, Håkan is an alto, soprano, and tenor saxophonist, arranger, and composer.

Already at the age of 8, Håkan started playing the piano, and when he was 15, he began playing the tenor saxophone and flute. One year later, he played the alto saxophone in various blues bands in Motala and the baritone saxophone with the Motala Big Band.

1972-1978

In 1972, he moved to Malmö to study at the music high school there, where his teacher was Helge Albin, a saxophonist and arranger with the Tolvan Big Band. He also started playing the soprano saxophone and collaborated with the Raj Montana Band and Dan Hylander. In 1977, he started studying at the Malmö College of Music and began composing regularly. He became a member of the Gothenburg group "Waves," led by the legendary drummer Conny Sjöqvist.

Danny Jonokuchi

Danny Jonokuchi is a multi-talented jazz artist based in New York City and Los Angeles. As a jazz trumpeter, vocalist, composer, arranger, producer, and educator, few artists are as diversely involved in their craft. He has been recognized for his performance on two GRAMMY Award-Winning projects, his signature “world-class arrangements” (Broadway World), and albums he has performed on and produced. He is also a recipient of several awards including the 2024 ISJAC Wayne Shorter Jazz Arranging Prize, the 2020 ASCAP Foundation Louis Armstrong Award, and he was unanimously named the winner of the 2020 Count Basie Great American Swing Contest.

Rafael Moreno

Born: February 1, 1983

Rafael Enrique Moreno Vega was born on February 1, 1983, in Panama City. He is the son of Rafael E. Moreno Pino and Elizabeth P. Vega de Moreno. A singer and songwriter, at the age of 5, he was already singing, but it was at the age of 8 that he began doing it more regularly at family parties, performing a repertoire of boleros, waltzes, and pasillos by artists such as Julio Jaramillo, Daniel Santos, Orlando Contreras, and others from the old guard that his parents and grandparents used to listen to.

At 17, he learned to play his first guitar chords with teacher Lucía Dorelis Pérez, although as a child, despite efforts by his uncle L. Raúl Moreno and his cousin Yira Castro to teach him, he did not like the instrument. During that time, he composed his first songs. That same year, 2000, he was hired for the first time by Professor Gilberto Campos and his group Rumba 5. A shy Rafael only sang the song "Conciencia" by composer Omar Alfanno twice during the night, as it was the only salsa song he knew.

Brian Ward

Born: September 30, 1969

Brian Ward is a keyboardist, recording artist, composer, arranger, and educator. Ward has performed with Talya Groves, Bobby Watson, Will Matthews, Leroy Vinnegar, Bobby Torres, Shirley Nanette, Dee Daniels, Curtis Salgado, Obo Addy, The Oregon Symphony, The Spokane Jazz Orchestra, and others. Brian helped create the "City of Roses" arrangement by Esperanza Spalding, which won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement for Vocal Performance in 2013. Ward received the 2022 Andrew B. Cius Jr. Award for outstanding student composer at the University of Kansas School of Music. Brian currently lives in Kansas City, where he is active on the jazz scene, performing jazz and blues

Brian D Ward

Born: September 30, 1969

Brian Ward, D.M.A., is a keyboardist, recording artist, composer, arranger, and educator from   the Pacific Northwest. Dr. Ward has performed with Bobby Watson, Will Matthews, Leroy Vinnegar, Bobby Torres, Shirley Nanette, Dee Daniels, Curtis Salgado, Obo Addy, The Oregon Symphony, The Spokane Jazz Orchestra, and many others. Brian helped create the arrangement for "City of Roses" by Esperanza Spalding, which won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement for Vocal Performance. Brian currently lives in Kansas City, Kansas, where he enjoys performing jazz and blues weekly.

Ryan Truesdell

A world-renowned, GRAMMY® Award-winning producer, composer, arranger, and educator, Ryan Truesdell was voted “Best New Artist” in the 2012 JazzTimes Critic’s Poll and is best known for his award-winning Gil Evans Project, a large ensemble devoted to the performance and preservation of the music of the famed arranger and Miles Davis collaborator, Gil Evans. This extensive project to unearth and bring to light some of the lesser-known music of Evans’ has resulted in two critically acclaimed albums: CENTENNIAL: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans (ArtistShare, 2012) which debuted ten never-before-recorded works of Evans’ in honor of his 100th birthday, and LINES OF COLOR: Live at Jazz Standard (Blue Note/ArtistShare, 2015), recorded live during the band’s annual residency at Jazz Standard in New York City. Both albums were unanimously praised by the critics, receiving a total of four GRAMMY® nominations and a posthumous GRAMMY® Award for “Best Instrumental Arrangement” for Evans, in addition to two Jazz Journalist Association Jazz Awards for ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Large Ensemble of the Year,’ UK JazzFM Awards Nomination for ‘Album of the Year’ and the "Les Coups De Coeur" from France's Académie Charles Cros.

Ramiro Zayas

The jazz pianist and composer Ramiro Zayas, based in Berlin, has been active in the scene for several years. In his music, Zayas blends his understanding of modal jazz, free improvisation, and Argentine music. Among his works as a leader are "Río Interior" (2019) and "Parte del Viaje" (2024), where the artist showcases refined harmonic exploration and solid skills as a composer. Currently, he also leads his ensemble "Collector" and is part of the Finnish-Argentinian trio "Narat."

Discovering the connection between images, emotions, and music is what interests him the most, and he strives to apply it both in his own project and in his compositions for large ensembles or big bands.