Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high-profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz arena.
The Elder Conservatorium of Music, also known as "The Con", is Australia's senior academy of music and is located in the centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It is named in honour of its benefactor, Sir Thomas Elder. Dating in its earliest form from 1883, it has a distinguished history in the intensive professional training for musical performance, musical composition, research in all fields of music, and comprehensive music education. The Elder Conservatorium of Music and its forerunners have been integral parts of the University of Adelaide since the early 1880s.
Parkersburg South High School in Parkersburg, West Virginia, United States serves grades 9 through 12, and is part of the Wood County School District. The school's colors are navy blue and white, and the mascot is a Patriot. The school's principal is Betsy Patterson. As of the 2016-17 school year, the school has 1,859 students. The Wood County School District has 13,259 students in 29 schools. Feeder schools are Edison Middle School and Blennerhasset Middle School. Current business partners include Chemours and Community Antenna Services (CAS).
MusicFest Canada is an educational music festival, established as the Canadian Stage Band Festival (CSBF) in Toronto, in 1972, by Robert Richmond, Gary Wadsworth, and Paul Miner. The CSBF added vocal and concert band components in 1981 and 1985, respectively. The name was changed to MusicFest Canada, in 1987, embracing the instrumental jazz, concert band and choral/vocal jazz divisions. In 2012 in partnership with the National Arts Centre they added a 4th orchestra/strings division.
The Sydney Symphony is internationally renowned and regularly performs in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House under Chief Conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy. City Recital Hall is dedicated mainly to chamber music and chamber orchestra concerts, featuring many famous international artists as well as concert series by fine local groups such as the renowned Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sydney's foremost Baroque orchestra, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
Korphai Ensemble, Korphai or kor phai which literally means a 'bunch of bamboo', is an ensemble of traditional Thai percussion music.
Musica Viva Australia was founded in 1945 by Romanian-born violinist Richard Goldner, with the aim of bringing chamber music to Australia. The co-founder was German-born musicologist Walter Dullo. In 1945 Musica Viva was a string ensemble performing chamber music to small groups of European immigrants. In 2013, Musica Viva has become the largest chamber music presenter in the world.
Jimmy Owens is a jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, among many others. Since 1969, he has led his own group, Jimmy Owens Plus.
Dr Thomas Fitzgerald is an Australian composer, musical director, conductor and musician.
The Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival is an annual international jazz festival held in Melbourne, Australia in April or May. The festival was formed in 2005 to celebrate Melbourne’s burgeoning creative jazz scene. Building on the unprecedented success of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 festivals, the festival returns again in 2008 to deliver eleven days and nights of original music featuring Melbourne’s most celebrated improvisers plus interstate guests.
RMIT Music Collective is the music club representing all student-run musical groups at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. RMIT Music Collective is affectionately called 'RMIT Music' by its members and wider community. It is the current acting-organisation responsible for all student music collectives either by direct control or by affiliation.
Eugene Ball is an Australian jazz trumpeter. He won the Best Australian Jazz Composition Award for "Fool Poet's Portion" at the Australian Jazz Bell Awards in 2008.
The University of California Jazz Ensembles, also known as the UC Jazz Ensembles, UC Jazz, or UCJE, is the student jazz organization founded in 1967 on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Founded in 1967, it comprises one or more big bands, numerous jazz combos, a vocal jazz ensemble, an alumni big band, and instructional classes. With a mission statement to foster a community for the performance, study, and promotion of jazz at U.C. Berkeley, its Wednesday Night big band provides free concerts every Thursday noon on Lower Sproul Plaza, its various units perform throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including area high schools, travel to collegiate jazz festivals, and perform overseas, and for many years it sponsored the annual Pacific Coast Jazz Festival. It also provides master classes by its instructors and clinics by prominent guest artists. It has nurtured numerous musicians who have become professional jazz musicians and educators. UC Jazz Ensembles is one of three groups, with the Cal (marching) Band and UC Choral Ensembles, forming Student Musical Activities (SMA), a department within Cal Performances on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Its members are primarily U.C. Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, representing many academic disciplines.
John McAll is a pianist, composer, arranger and producer with experience ranging from jazz, pop, blues,rock contemporary classical, afrobeat and theatre.
Anthony Branker is an American musician and educator of Caribbean descent whose work as a composer, educator, scholar, conductor, and performer has been featured on the international stage in Brazil, Switzerland, Poland, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Denmark, Greece, China, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Russia, Lithuania, and Japan as well as throughout the United States. Branker was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and raised in Piscataway and Plainfield, New Jersey. He attended public schools in Piscataway and graduated from Piscataway Township High School in 1976. where he was involved in the music program under the direction of R. Bruce Bradshaw and Joseph T. Mundi. Following high school, Branker attended Princeton University where he received his B.A. in Music and a Certificate in African American Studies. His graduate studies took him to the University of Miami for a Master of Music in Jazz Pedagogy and later to Columbia University, Teachers College where he received the degrees of Master of Education and Doctor of Education; both with specialties in Music and Music Education.
The earliest western musical influences in Australia can be traced to two distinct sources: in the first settlements, the large body of convicts, soldiers and sailors who brought the traditional folk music of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and the first free settlers, some of whom had been exposed to the European classical music tradition in their upbringing. An example of original music by a convict would be an 1861 tune dedicated to settler James Gordon by fiddler constable Alexander Laing. Very little music has survived from this early period, although there are samples of music originating from Sydney and Hobart that date back to the early 19th century. Musical publications from this period preserved in Australian libraries include works by Charles Edward Horsley, William Stanley (composer), Isaac Nathan, Charles Sandys Packer, Frederick Augustus Packer, Carl Linger, Francis Hartwell Henslowe, Frederick Ellard, Raimund Pechotsch and Julius Siede.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
Yang Jing is a composer and Pipa soloist. She works in Switzerland since 2000.
David Jones, is an Australian drummer/percussionist who is often described as being one of the most innovative musical drummers in the world, a true virtuoso musician.
