Anna Webber

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Anna Kristin Webber (born November 26, 1984 in Vancouver ) is a Canadian saxophonist , flautist and composer of creative jazz . She lives in Brooklyn .

Live and act

Anna Webber first took music lessons from her mother and initially played the piano and cello before switching to the flute. In her final year of high school, first the alto , then the tenor saxophone became her main instrument. In 2003 she moved to Montréal to study , where she earned a Bachelor of Jazz degree from McGill University in 2006 . In 2008 she moved to New York and continued her studies at the Manhattan School of Music , where she had lessons with George Garzone and Jason Moran and played with musicians such as Mark Turner , Steve Wilson and Jamie Baum . The first recordings were made in 2009 with Stefon Harris ( Blackout — Urbanus , Concord) and the following year with Daniel Jamieson's Danjam Orchestra ( Sudden Appearance ). Her own band at that time was called 'Pink Flamingo' and worked with two drummers.

In the 2011/12 academic year she completed her master's degree in jazz at the Berlin University of the Arts . There, in view of the many good vibraphonists, her appreciation of this instrument changed, and in 2011 she founded the formation Percussive Mechanics (which no longer existed in 2019) ; In this septet, she has another woodwind player, a bass player, a pianist and two percussionists on the flute and saxophone . Since she essentially provides notated compositions for this group, she justified the double line-ups with “compositional necessities”.

After graduating, she worked on the New York jazz scene with Ben Street , Dave Douglas , Jason Moran, Tony Malaby and drummer John Hollenbeck . In 2010 Webber released her debut album with a bassless septet on Nowt Records, in which woodwind instruments , guitars and drums were doubled. In the fall of 2014, Webber's combo Percussive Mechanics released their second album Refraction on Pirouet. In her Simple Trio , she works with drummer John Hollenbeck and pianist Matt Mitchell ; it has released two albums on Skirl Records so far: Binary (2016) and Simple (2014). Webber founded her septet in 2018, consisting of Jeremy Viner (tenor saxophone, clarinet), Jacob Garchik , Chris Hoffman (cello), Matt Mitchell, Chris Tordini and Ches Smith .

She also worked in the collaborative trio Jagged Spheres with the pianist Elias Stemeseder and the drummer Devin Gray , with whom she has released two albums so far; in the group The Hero of Warchester she plays with Nathaniel Morgan and Liz Kosack . Fabian Almazan invited her to the New Jazz Meeting in 2015 , where the album Realm of Possibilities was created. Webber has also worked with Dan Weiss , Jen Shyu , Ohad Talmor , Ches Smith , Hank Roberts , Harris Eisenstadt ( Recent Developments , 2017), Simon Nabatov , Adam Hopkins, Erik Hove and the Ken Thomson Sextet. In 2020 she and Angela Morris presented the big band album Both Are True , which Avant Music News counted among the five best productions of the first half of the year.

Prizes and awards

Webber won the 2010 Prix ​​François-Marcaurelle at the OFF Festival of Jazz in Montreal. In 2014, Webber was awarded the BMI Foundation Charlie Parker Composition Prize as a member of the BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop. In 2015 she received a grant from the Shifting Foundation , and in 2018 a Guggenheim grant . At the Down Beat Critics Poll 2020 she was the winner in the category “Best Flutist (Rising Star)”.

Discographic notes

  • Third Floor People Don't Need to Worry About Anything (Nowt 2010, with Matt Holman , Erik Hove, Fred Kennedy, Jean-Sebastien Williams, Owen Stewart-Robertson, Philippe Melanson)
  • Percussive Mechanics ( Pirouet Records 2013; with James Wylie , Elias Stemeseder, Julius Heise, Igor Spallati , Max Andrzejewski , Martin Krümmling).
  • Simple (Skirl, 2014), with Matt Mitchell, John Hollenbeck
  • Refraction (Pirouet 2014, with James Wylie, Elias Stemeseder, Julius Heise, Igor Spallati, Max Andrzejewski, Martin Krümmling)
  • Binary (Skirl, 2016), with Matt Mitchell, John Hollenbeck
  • Anna Webber, Erik Hove, Vicky Mettler, Evan Tighe: Eave (Astral Spirits, 2018)
  • Clockwise (Pi 2019, with Jeremy Viner, Jacob Garchik, Christopher Hoffman, Matt Mitchell, Chris Tordini, Ches Smith)
  • Rectangles (2020), with Marc Hannaford , Adam Hopkins , Mark Ferber

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Lord The Jazz Discography (online March 8, 2014)
  2. ↑ a b Anna Webber the hope for the music scene: Refraction - an interface between new music and jazz , Deutschlandradio Kultur, November 24, 2014, accessed November 25, 2014
  3. ^ Jazz Listings in The New York Times
  4. ↑ Fabian Almazan Realm of Possibilities: SRW New Jazz Meeting 2016 (discussion of jazzthing)
  5. ↑ Avant Music News Best of the First Half of 2020. Avant Music News, July 13, 2020, accessed on July 13, 2020 .
  6. ^ Review of the album Percussive Mechanics in All About Jazz
  7. ↑ Meeting (AllAboutJazz)


personal data
SURNAME Webber, Anna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Webber, Anna Kristin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Vancouver