Anna Kristin Webber is a Canadian

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) 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 pro ...

flutist The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

, and composer of

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...

based in Brooklyn. A

Guggenheim Award Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

-winning composer, Webber has released a number of critically-acclaimed albums as leader or co-leader, and received accolades for her work as saxophonist, flutist, and arranger.

Early life and education

Originally from

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Webber began her studies at Montreal's

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

. In 2008, she moved to New York City and began a master's degree at Manhattan School of Music. In 2010, Webber completed her master's, was awarded the Prix François-Marcaurelle at Montreal's L'OFF Festival, and released her debut album as leader, ''Third Floor People Don't Need to Worry About Anything''. ''Third Floor People'' features a cast of seven, with Webber as the fixed constant between two quartets: tracks feature either the "Montreal People" (Erik Hove, Jean-Sebastien Williams, Phil Melanson) or the "New York People" (Matt Holman, Owen Stewart, Fred Kennedy). Webber moved to Germany in 2011 to study with John Hollenbeck at the Jazz Institut Berlin. Hollenbeck will later became a member of Webber's Simple Trio. Webber first began working on compositions for big band while in the program, and completed her second master's degree in 2012.

Career

From 2013 to 2016, Webber's releases as leader alternated between her Percussive Mechanics septet and her Simple Trio. The self-titled ''Percussive Mechanics'', featuring James Wylie, Elias Stemeseder, Julius Heise, Igor Spallati, Martin Kruemmling, and Max Andrzejewski, was released on Pirouet Records in 2013, with the group's ''Refraction'' following two years later. In 2014, Webber was awarded the prestigious BMI Foundation Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize and released ''SIMPLE'', the highly-lauded debut of her trio with John Hollenbeck and pianist Matt Mitchell, on

Skirl Records Skirl Records is an American record label in Brooklyn, New York, that concentrates on improvised music. The label was started by Chris Speed in 2006. Roster * Jim Black * Shelley Burgon * Anthony Burr * Andrew D'Angelo * Trevor Dunn * Devin G ...

. Two years later, ''Binary'' was also released to great acclaim. In 2017, Webber received a

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

Canadian Women Artists’ Award, and in 2018 she was awarded a

for her work in music composition. Webber's ''Clockwise'' ( Pi, 2019) introduced a septet with Jeremy Viner, Jacob Garchik, Christopher Hoffman, Matt Mitchell, Chris Tordini, and

Ches Smith Gordon McChesney "Ches" Smith is an American musician, whose primary instruments are drums, percussion, and vibraphone. He recorded and performed an album of his own solo percussion pieces entitled ''Congs for Brums'' (2006). In 2010 he release ...

. The album was included in the top ten of the 2019 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. The Webber/Morris Big Band, co-led with Angela Morris, released its debut ''Both Are True'' on Greenleaf Music in April 2020; the album was included in ''The New York Times'' 10 Best Jazz Albums of the year and

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

Daily's Best Jazz Albums of 2020. Later that year she also released ''Rectangles'' (Out Of Your Head Records), featuring Marc Hannaford, Adam Hopkins, and Mark Ferber. The quartet's record was included among ''DownBeats Best Albums of 2020. Webber was a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow and a featured performer on

Remy Le Boeuf Remy Le Boeuf (born August 3, 1986) is a jazz saxophonist, composer and multi-instrumentalist born in Santa Cruz, California. He co-leads the jazz group Le Boeuf Brothers, and has a successful solo career as a composer and sideman integrating jaz ...

's "Strata", a nominee for the 2021 Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition. Co-led projects include trios Jagged Spheres (with Elias Stemeseder, Devin Gray), The Hero of Warchester (with Nathaniel Morgan, Liz Kosack), and the COVID-recent TAC Trio (with Chris Tordini, Theo Bleckmann), as well as the acronymic quartet EAVE with Erik Hove, Vicky Mettler, and Evan Tighe. Webber's work is often guided by conceptual constraints. ''Clockwise'', the septet record she composed during the first of her two MacDowell residencies, was informed by John Cage's works for percussion; ''Binary'' was partly inspired by the now-defunct automated

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

account Webdriver Torso, and at times directed by the assignation of pitches and intervals to the numbers in Webber's IP address.

Discography

As leader

As co-leader

As sideperson

References

External links

Anna Webber's homepage

Bandcamp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Webber, Anna Canadian jazz composers Canadian jazz saxophonists Canadian saxophonists Canadian women composers Living people McGill University alumni Manhattan School of Music alumni Pirouet Records artists Women jazz saxophonists 1984 births 21st-century Canadian women musicians 21st-century Canadian composers 21st-century jazz composers 21st-century saxophonists