Past

Currently Inactive Personnel

Ken Schaphorst

Ken Schaphorst

Ken Schaphorst
Ken Schaphorst is a founding member of the Jazz Composers Alliance. The Ken Schaphorst Big Band, created in 1988, has been hailed by the Boston Phoenix as "the most interesting and contemporary large ensemble to come out of Boston in recent years." Schaphorst's composing and arranging is featured on four recordings on Accurate Records: Making Lunch (1989), After Blue (1991), When the Moon Jumps (1994) and Over the Rainbow (1997). Ken Schaphorst Big Band: Purple was released by Naxos Jazz in January, 1999. Schaphorst's latest recording for Accurate, Indigenous Technology, (2003), features Schaphorst's playing on trumpet and piano in a trio setting with cellist Matt Turner and percussionist Dane Richeson. Schaphorst was appointed Chair of Jazz Studies and Improvisation at the New England Conservatory in 2001. Between 1991 and 2001, Schaphorst served as Director of Jazz Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

More info at New England Conservatory site.

Laura Andel

Laura Andel

Composer Laura Andel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and currently lives in New York City. One of Laura Andel's strengths is her ability to gather large ensembles to play her compositions. She has conducted her music in such cities as New York, Boston, Buenos Aires, Caracas, and Berlin. She has received several grants and awards for her work, among some of them are the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program Grant from the American Music Center, a Music Composition Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the BMI Foundation-Jerry Harrington Jazz Composers Award. She has also recently been a fellow artist resident at MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH, 2002), and will be one at Sacatar Foundation (Bahia, Brazil, 2003/2004). Her most recent 50-minute work, Somnambulist for 14 musicians and conductor, has just been released at the Canadian record label Red Toucan. Visit Laura Andel's website for more information.

Ryo Noritake

Ryo Noritake was born in Nagoya, Japan. Ryo moved to Boston in 2005 to attend Berklee College of Music with the scholarship, where he studied with Hal Crook, Ian Froman, Terri Lyne Carrington, George Garzone, Dave Santoro, JoAnne Brackeen, Jon Hazilla, Bob Gullotti and many other teachers. He received Professional Music Achievement Award on March 2008 and graduated Berklee with summa cum laude on May 2008.

 

Web Site: 
ryonoritake.gozaru.jp
myspace