Fred Sturm

Fred Sturm has composed and arranged music featuring jazz vocalists Kurt Elling and Bobby McFerrin; trumpeters Clay Jenkins, Ingrid Jensen, Wynton Marsalis, and Clark Terry; trombonists Bob Brookmeyer, Wycliffe Gordon, and Jim Pugh; saxophonists Branford Marsalis, Chis Vadala, and Phil Woods; guitarists Gene Bertoncini, Mike Stern, and John Scofield; vibraphonists Gary Burton and Joe Locke; bassists Arild Andersen and Ike Sturm; pianist Lars Jansson; and drummer Steve Houghton.

Sturm has served as guest conductor/composer/arranger for professional jazz ensembles and radio orchestras in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland and Norway; as director of university jazz ensembles and high school all-state jazz bands throughout the U.S.; as clinician at national educational conferences and festivals; and as composer-in-residence for school and university music programs.

Sturm works are published by Lorenz Heritage JazzWorks, Universal Edition, Sierra Music Publications, Kendor, Warner Brothers/Alfred Music, Advance Music, Ensemble Publications, Really Good Music, and UNC Jazz Press and have been issued on Concord Jazz, RCA, hrMedia, and Warner Brothers Records. His 9 "inning" baseball symphony Forever Spring has continuously toured American orchestras with The Baseball Music Project under the auspices of the Baseball Hall of Fame since 2005. Migrations: One World, Many Musics, his concert suite inspired by indigenous music from 21 countries, was premiered by vocalist Bobby McFerrin and the NDR Big Band in Germany in 2007 and toured Europe the following summer.

Sturm was the 2003 recipient of the ASCAP/IAJE Commission In Honor of Quincy Jones, a prize granted annually to one established jazz composer of international prominence. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music, and the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund. His texts Changes Over Time: The Evolution of Jazz Arranging, Kenny Wheeler: Collected Works on ECM, and Maria Schneider: Evanescence are published by Advance Music (Germany) and Universal Edition (Vienna), and his teaching concept titled All Ears: Improvisation, Aural Training, and the Creative Process is widely used by school music educators.

Sturm studied at Lawrence University’s Conservatory of Music, the University of North Texas (performing in the One O’Clock Lab Band), the Eastman School of Music (performing in the Eastman Jazz Ensemble), and was a founding member of the RCA, Warner Brothers, and Pablo Records jazz nonet Matrix. 

Sturm is the Director of Jazz and Improvisational Music at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin. He previously served as Professor and Chair of Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media at the Eastman School of Music in New York from 1991 to 2002, where he directed the internationally acclaimed Eastman Jazz Ensemble, conducted the 70-piece Eastman Studio Orchestra, and coordinated the Eastman jazz composition and arranging program.

Sturm received the University Award for Excellence in Teaching at Lawrence in 2005 and the 2010 Downbeat Jazz Education Achievement Award. Over the course of his university teaching career, Downbeat Magazine has cited his ensembles as the finest in the United States and Canada nine times.

Awards

ASCAP/IAJE Commission In Honor of Quincy Jones University Award for Excellence in Teaching at Lawrence 2010 Downbeat Jazz Education Achievement Award Downbeat Magazine has cited his ensembles as the finest in the United States and Canada nine times National Endowment for the Arts grants Meet the Composer grants National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences grants Howard Hanson Institute for American Music grants Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund grants