Ken Ford | |
---|---|
Born | St. Louis, Missouri | November 14, 1968
Genres | Jazz, classical, R&B |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, record producer |
Instrument(s) | Violin |
Labels | Twelve Music Group |
Website | kenford |
Ken Ford (born November 14, 1968) is an American jazz violinist. He began his career as a classical violinist, but he has recorded with musicians in R&B, neo soul, and contemporary jazz.
Born in St. Louis, Ken Ford lived in Detroit, Michigan, before his parents moved with their only child to make their permanent home in Atlanta, Georgia. With his father as a DJ, he grew up surrounded by the sounds of jazz, blues, and R&B from Earth, Wind & Fire to Al Green and more. After trying numerous instruments, at the age of nine he settled on the violin. In his Atlanta school years, he trained classically on the violin, with training from members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and he became a founding member of the DeKalb Youth Pops Orchestra. Ford also joined the African American Philharmonic Orchestra (AAPO), working his way up to Concert Master. While playing with the AAPO, he performed for Barry White. Growing up hearing different genres, Ford followed his father's footsteps for a time as a DJ and counts Stevie Wonder and violinists Noel Pointer and Jean-Luc Ponty among his musical influences. At his mother's urging to pursue education with a backup career plan, he completed a degree in Computer Information Systems. [1] [2] [3] He became a fixture on Atlanta's music scene and his renown grew. He decided to pursue music full-time after himself unemployed in the middle 1990s. [1]
He recorded with Bruno Mars, Chaka Khan, Ledisi, Lalah Hathaway, Wyclef Jean, Maxwell, and Cee Lo Green. [1] [4] [5] His albums include Burnt Toast (2001), Chevelle Lane (2003), Right Now (2009), and State of Mind (2011). [3] [4] [6]
Ford is a supporter of music education. He hosts benefits and meets with youth while touring to educate them on music appreciation. In July 2010 he created the Ken Ford Foundation to support arts and music in children's education and to discourage notions about the violin as a boring instrument fit only for classical music. He was scheduled to perform in An Evening of Respect, a tribute to Otis Redding, in Macon, Georgia, in September 2011. [3] [7]
Nigel Kennedy is an English violinist and violist.
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable and critically acclaimed film scores in cinema history. Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 53 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. His compositions are considered the epitome of film music, and he is considered among the greatest composers in the history of cinema. Williams has composed many of his film scoring works for frequent collaborators Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and other directors such as Chris Columbus, Oliver Stone, Richard Donner, Irwin Kershner, Sydney Pollack, Alfred Hitchcock, Mark Rydell, Mark Robson, Jean-Jacques Annaud, and Robert Altman.
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
Lakshminarayana Subramaniam is an Indian violinist, composer and conductor, trained in the classical Carnatic music tradition and Western classical music.
Jean-Luc Ponty is a French jazz and jazz fusion violinist and composer.
Mark O'Connor is an American fiddle player and composer whose music combines bluegrass, country, jazz and classical. A three-time Grammy Award winner, he has won six Country Music Association Musician Of The Year awards and, was a member of three influential musical ensembles; the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, and Strength in Numbers.
Hugo Henry Rignold was an English conductor and violinist, who is best remembered as musical director of the Royal Ballet (1957–1960) and conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1960–1968).
Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti is an Italian-Scottish classical solo violinist and festival director. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16. She works with orchestras in Europe and America as well as with Alexei Grynyuk, her regular pianist. Since 2012, she has played the Gariel Stradivarius violin. She became the first woman to lead the Edinburgh International Festival when she was made Festival Director on 1 October 2022.
Augustin Hadelich is an Italian-German-American Grammy-winning classical violinist.
Tim Kliphuis is a Dutch violinist renowned for mixing gypsy jazz with classical and folk music, whose recent works have been dedicated to raising awareness about climate change.
Octavio Brunetti was a pianist, arranger and composer from Argentina. He was best known for his participation in the album Te amo tango by Raul Jaurena, which won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Tango Album in 2007, and was one of the most sought after tango pianists.
Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 58, was composed in 1891 and dedicated to the violinist/composer Joseph Joachim, who had persuaded him to expand a single movement concert piece into a full violin concerto.
Quartet San Francisco is a non-traditional and eclectic string quartet led by violinist Jeremy Cohen. The group played their first concert in 2001 and has recorded five albums. Playing a wide range of music genres including jazz, blues, tango, swing, funk, and pop, the group challenges the traditional classical music foundation of the string quartet.
The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra (ABO), founded in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, is the first and oldest professional orchestra in the Southeastern United States of America dedicated to historically informed performance, of music from the Baroque era on period instruments. The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra gave its premiere concert in January, 1998. The first director of the ABO was lute and theorbo player Lyle Nordstrom, who departed in 2003. John Hsu, noted performer on the viola da gamba and baryton, took the title of artistic advisor, becoming artistic director in July 2004; he continued through the 2008/2009 season. From 2004 through 2011, the resident director was founding member Daniel Pyle, harpsichordist and organist, instructor of music at Clayton State University, and organist and choir director at the Anglican Church of Our Saviour in Atlanta. Violinist, Baroque dancer and choreographer Julie Andrijeski became artistic director in February, 2011.
American fiddle-playing began with the early settlers who found that the small viol family instruments were portable and rugged. According to Ron Yule, "John Utie, a 1620 immigrant, settled in the North and is credited as being the first known fiddler on American soil". Early influences were Irish fiddle styles as well as Scottish and the more refined traditions of classical violin playing. Popular tunes included "Soldier's Joy", for which Robert Burns had written lyrics, and other such tunes as "Flowers of Edinburgh" and "Tamlin," which were claimed by both Scottish and Irish lineages.
Adam Georg Taubitz is a German jazz and classical musician. He is perhaps best known for his work with the Berlin Philharmonic Jazz Group, which he established in 1999, and with the Aura Quartett.
Patrick Zimmerli is an American saxophonist, composer, arranger, and record producer.
Gregor Huebner is a violinist, pianist and composer. He performs solo and with several ensembles including El Violin Latino, Sirius Quartet, Berta Epple and Salsafuerte. From 1985 to 2012 he was a member of Tango Five. He is a professor of composition at the University for Music and Theater in Munich, Germany. In 2017 he received the Grand Prize for New York Philharmonic's New World Initiative Composition Challenge for his composition “New World, Nov 9. 2016.”
Derryck Gleaton, better known as DSharp, is an American violinist, DJ, singer and producer based in Atlanta, Georgia. Known for his trademark colored violins, he writes his own music and performs cover versions of popular songs, focusing on hip hop, electronic dance music and classical pieces.
Samuel "Savoirfaire" Williams is a classically-trained, American jazz violinist from Chicago.