Anna Webber Joins the NEC Jazz Orchestra For a Performance This Month

Internationally acclaimed saxophonist, flutist, and composer Anna Webber, the new co-chair of New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department, joins the NEC Jazz Orchestra for The Music of Anna Webber and Angela Morris on Thursday February 29, 7:30 p.m. at Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston. Free admission, ticket required. Information at necmusic.edu.

In 2015, Anna Webber and Angela Morris brought together their arsenal of skills as composers-performers-conductors to form the Webber/Morris Big Band, an ensemble of eighteen stellar New York improvisers who bring their combined artistic vision into reality. Their debut album, Both Are True, was named as one of the top 10 jazz albums of 2020 by the New York Times. Their music, though scored for traditional jazz big band, is rooted in minimalism, noise, pop, and the sounds of today. Integrating improvisation and composed material in unorthodox ways and using extra-musical sources such as poetry or mathematics– here the traditional big band sound mutates into something unpredictable and exciting. In this concert, Webber and Morris conduct the NEC Jazz Orchestra playing the repertoire of the Webber/Morris Big Band. 

Anna Webber (b. 1984) is a flutist, saxophonist, and composer whose interests and work live in the aesthetic overlap between avant-garde jazz and new classical music. Her 2023 album, Shimmer Wince, explores Just Intonation in a jazz setting, and is a follow-up to her equally acclaimed release Idiom. That album earned Webber the accolade of being named the top composer of the year by JazzTimes in 2021. Her music has been called "visionary and captivating," (Wall Street Journal), and “heady music [that] appeals to the rest of the body” (NPR). Her album Clockwise was voted #6 Best Album of 2019 in the NPR Jazz Critics Poll, and her 2020 release, Both Are True (Greenleaf Music), co-led with saxophonist/composer Angela Morris, was named a top ten best release of 2020 by The New York Times. She was recently named a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow and was voted the top “Rising Star” flutist in the 2020 DownBeat Critics Poll. 

The band featured on Shimmer Wince is a new group, consisting of Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Mariel Roberts on cello, Elias Stemeseder on synthesizer, and Lesley Mok on drums. A prolific bandleader, Webber also has been working with her Simple Trio, featuring John Hollenbeck and Matt Mitchell, for over a decade, as well as leading many other groups, such as a large ensemble, a septet, and the aforementioned big band. She has performed and/or recorded with projects led by artists such as Dan Weiss, Roscoe Mitchell, Ranja Swaminathan, Jen Shyu, Dave Douglas, Matt Mitchell, Ches Smith, John Hollenbeck, and Trevor Dunn, among others.