Anna Webber wins 2014 Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize

Anna Webber, recipient of the BMI Foundation’s 15th annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize and Manny Albam Commission, conducts the BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra at the BMI Jazz Composer Workshop’s 26th Annual Showcase Concert on June 27 in New York City.

L-R: JCW Associate Musical Director Mike Holober, JCW Musical Director Jim McNeely, trombonist John Fedchock, Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize winner Anna Webber, trumpeterIngrid Jensen, composer Darcy J. Argue, and BMI Director, Musical Theatre & Jazz Pat Cook

Photos by Melissa Dispenza

Composer Anna Webber was named the winner of the BMI Foundation’s 15th annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize and Manny Albam Commission at the BMI Jazz Composer Workshop’s (JCW) 26th Annual Showcase Concert on June 27 in New York City. The award is made annually for the best original work created in the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop and honors the memory of jazz legend Charlie Parker. Included in the prize is a $3,000 commission to write a new work, to be premiered at the following year’s showcase concert. Webber won the 2015 prize for her composition, “Reverses.”

Multi-instrumentalist composer and improvisor Anna Webber is an integral part of a new wave of the Brooklyn avant-garde jazz scene. A saxophonist and flutist who persistently avoids the expected, Webber has furthermore established herself as a forward-thinking composer with Percussive Mechanics, her new release on Pirouet Records.

In addition to the Percussive Mechanics septet, Webber’s other projects include a trio with Matt Mitchell and John Hollenbeck and the Canadian quintet Montreal People. Webber also is a member of the collaborative ensembles Jagged Spheres (with Devin Gray) and Hero of Warchester (with Nathaniel Morgan and Liz Kosack). An in-demand sideperson, Webber has toured the USA, Canada, and Europe and currently performs with the Adam Hopkins Sextet; Noah Garabedian’s Big Butter and the Eggmen; the Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble; the Marike van Dijk Large Ensemble; the Martin Krümmling Quartet; Simon Kanzler’s Talking Hands; and Fabian Almazan’s Biophilia wind sextet, among many others. Furthermore, she appears on Stefon Harris’ Grammy-nominated album Urbanus.

Originally from British Columbia, Webber studied music at McGill University in Montreal before moving to New York City in 2008. She holds master’s degrees from both Manhattan School of Music and the Jazz Institute Berlin. Her teachers have included John Hollenbeck, Jason Moran, Mark Turner, and George Garzone.