Andrew J. Allen (born 1986) is an American classical and contemporary saxophonist and pedagogue who is currently an associate professor of music at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia and serves as President of the North American Saxophone Alliance.
He has previously served on the faculties of Midwestern State University, Valley City State University, and Claflin University. [1] He currently serves as a member of the Allen Duo, The Palmetto Saxophone Quartet, and the saxophone/percussion duo Rogue Two. [2] He has appeared as a soloist with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra, the University of Arkansas Wind Symphony, and the Oklahoma State University Chamber Orchestra and has performed in orchestras in Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Allen has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, and Croatia including appearances at the 16th, 17th, and 18th World Saxophone Congress and conferences of the North American Saxophone Alliance, the College Music Society, and the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors. [3] He has premiered many new works for the saxophone by such composers as Jay Batzner, Fang Man, Robert Lemay, François Rossé, Jesse Jones, Greg Simon, and Annie Neikirk, among many others. [4] Allen holds degrees from Tennessee Tech University, Central Michigan University, and the University of South Carolina, and his teachers include Phillip Barham, John Nichol, and Clifford Leaman, and he has received additional instruction from Joseph Lulloff, Arno Bornkamp, and Claude Delangle, among others. His articles and reviews have appeared in such publications as the NASA Update, The Saxophone Symposium, The Instrumentalist, Teaching Music, School Band and Orchestra Magazine, JazzEd, The Texas Bandmasters Review, and Saxophone Today, and he serves as assistant editor of The Saxophone Symposium. [5] He currently serves as an Artist-Clinician for the Conn-Selmer Corporation [6] and is a Vandoren Artist.[ citation needed ] Allen is President of the North American Saxophone Alliance. [7]
The saxophone is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to produce a sound wave inside the instrument's body. The pitch is controlled by opening and closing holes in the body to change the effective length of the tube. The holes are closed by leather pads attached to keys operated by the player. Saxophones are made in various sizes and are almost always treated as transposing instruments. A person who plays the saxophone is called a saxophonist or saxist.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, neoromantic style. She has been called "one of America's most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers." She was a 1994 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Zwilich has served as the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭, smaller than the B♭ tenor but larger than the B♭ soprano. It is the most common saxophone and is used in popular music, concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, military bands, marching bands, pep bands, carnatic music, and jazz.
Frederick L. Hemke(néFred LeRoy Hemke Jr.; July 11, 1935 – April 17, 2019) was an American virtuoso classical saxophonist and influential professor of saxophone at Northwestern University. Hemke helped to increase the popularity of classical saxophone, particularly among leading American composers. He contributed to raising the recognition of the classical saxophone in solo, chamber, and major orchestral repertoire throughout the world. For half a century, from 1962 to 2012, Hemke was a full-time faculty member at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music. In 2002, he was named Associate Dean Emeritus of the school. He retired in 2012. Throughout his career, Hemke helped build American saxophone repertoire through many composers including Muczynski, Creston, Stein, Heiden, and Karlins. Journalist and author Michael Segell, in his 2005 book, The Devil's Horn, called Hemke "The Dean of Saxophone Education in America." Hemke died on April 17, 2019.
Conn-Selmer, Inc. is an American manufacturer of musical instruments for concert bands, marching bands and orchestras. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Steinway Musical Instruments and was formed in 2003 by combining the Steinway properties, The Selmer Company and United Musical Instruments.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Greg Banaszak is an American saxophonist specializing in classical music and jazz. He has performed in both styles through concerto performances, solo, and chamber music recitals and jazz festivals in the United States, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Phillip Wayne Barham is a classical and jazz saxophonist was the professor of saxophone at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee until October 2018.
Clifford Leaman is an American classical saxophonist and is an associate dean and professor of saxophone at the School of Music of the University of South Carolina In January 2008, Leaman performed upon invitation at the 31st International Saxophone Symposium with the United States Navy Band. Dr. Leaman hosted the North American Saxophone Alliance in April 2008; the conference was held at the University of South Carolina's School of Music. Dr. Leaman was the Music Division co-chair for the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and served as editor of reviews for the Saxophone Symposium, the North American Saxophone Alliance's annual publication.
Debra Richtmeyer is an American classical saxophonist born June 19, 1957, in Lansing, Michigan.
Mark Engebretson, DMA, Northwestern University is a saxophonist and composer. His music combines computer music and live performance, the latter usually performed on saxophone.
Michel Brunet Perrault is a Canadian composer, conductor, music educator, and percussionist. As a composer, his work largely pulls on Canadian folk melodies and his compositions include classical of harmony and counterpoint. Perrault has been commissioned to write works for such notable organizations as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. From the late 1970s through the 1990s he wrote a considerable amount of music for the Gerald Danovitch Saxophone Quartet. Much of his music has been published by his own publishing company, Les Publications Bonart.
John Melby is an American composer.
Gary Keller is a jazz and classical saxophonist, recording artist, a lecturer at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, and a Conn-Selmer Artist. He has played with Woody Herman, Frank Sinatra, and Jaco Pastorius, among many over a career spanning more than four decades. He appears on numerous recordings. He has performed in the pit of Broadway orchestras and for television shows.
Timothy McAllister is an American classical saxophonist and music educator, who, as of 2014, is Professor of Saxophone at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
Dorothy Hindman is an American composer and music educator.
Tak Chiu Wong (黃德釗) is a Hong Kong saxophonist, teacher, and arranger.
Mathew Rosenblum is an American composer whose works have been commissioned, recorded and performed by musical groups such as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, FLUX Quartet, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and Newband among other ensembles, in venues throughout North America, Europe and Asia including the Andy Warhol Museum, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Thailand's Prince Mahidol Hall, as well as Merkin Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, the Miller Theatre, The Kitchen, Carnegie Recital Hall, and Symphony Space in New York City. Rosenblum's music has been recorded on such labels as Mode Records, New World Records, Albany Records, Capstone Records, Opus One Records, New Focus Recordings, and the Composers Recordings Inc. label, and has been published by Edition Peters, of Leipzig, London, and New York.
Dale Underwood is an American saxophonist best known for his 30-year career with the U.S. Navy Band through which he influenced the further development of the classical saxophone audience and repertoire.
Robert Lemay is a Canadian composer of solo, chamber and orchestral works.