Jazz multi-instrumentalist and educator John Gunther, a Colorado native, began teaching this fall as a faculty member in the University of Colorado at Boulder College of Music's Jazz Studies program.
Gunther grew up in Aurora, Colo., and began playing saxophone in the third grade before eventually earning degrees from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the University of Miami. He has performed internationally as a member of the Woody Herman Orchestra, recorded extensively with his own bands and other projects, and comes to CU-Boulder after seven years as a professor of saxophone, flute, clarinet and jazz studies at New York University.
"With his hire, our program has risen another notch and the students as well as the college will benefit," said John Davis, director of CU-Boulder Jazz Studies.
"I feel that his national and international performing experience will bring valuable real-world experience to our students. He is a devoted educator as well, and his scholarly interests go beyond music, which will make him a real asset. His demeanor with students is positive and supportive, and he has much to offer both graduate and undergraduate students," Davis said.
Gunther's references include international jazz saxophone stars Michael Brecker and Joe Lovano, as well as Willie Hill, who received an honorary doctoral degree from CU-Boulder in 2002. Hill spent more than 30 years as a music educator in Colorado, including many years in the Denver public school system and 11 years as a professor and assistant dean at CU-Boulder.
Gunther's compositions and musical interests span a diverse array of influences, including all styles of jazz, 20th century music and world rhythms. He has received grants from "Meet the Composer" and the National Endowment for the Arts.
As part of New York City's downtown music scene for the past 10 years, Gunther produced five recordings for Creative Improvised Music Projects as a bandleader. He co-founded "Spooky Actions," a quartet that performs classical and 20th century compositions, early music and American Indian melodies.
He has performed in many of New York's top jazz clubs including the Village Vanguard, Visiones, Birdland and the Blue Note. His freelance work has included shows with Tom Harrel, Michael Brecker, Joe Williams, Buddy DeFranco, Ernestine Anderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Henderson, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Toshiko Akiyoshi and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Gunther also performs in the jazz quintet "Convergence," a Denver-based band that hosts a yearly summer jazz camp in Westcliffe, Colo. Gunther has worked with young students in the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts, an organization for talented young musicians founded by Paul Romaine, also a jazz studies faculty member at CU-Boulder.
Gunther and Romaine are among seven new teachers added to the CU-Boulder program in the last year. Students in the program garnered two more prestigious Down Beat magazine student music awards in 2005, bringing the program's four-year total to 11 awards, more than any other school in the region. A number of Down Beat student award winners have gone on to become stars of the international jazz community.
This fall, the program's top jazz big band, Jazz Ensemble I, will release a new CD. For more information about the CU-Boulder Jazz Studies department, go to the Web site at .