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John Korsrud

Honored with the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for Music for 2012, John is a composer, producer, trumpet player, and educator based in Vancouver.

He is the leader and principle composer of the 17-piece Hard Rubber Orchestra, a highly active jazz/ new music ensemble that has toured to Europe and across Canada, released two CDs, and is the recipient of Canada’s largest arts prize, The Alcan Arts Award.

As a composer John performed on his own trumpet concerto, Come to the Dark Side, at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2010, commissioned and performed by The American Composers Orchestra. John has also been commissioned by The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, The CBC Radio Orchestra, the Albany Symphony New Music Festival, Vancouver New Music, Turning Point Ensemble, The Standing Wave Ensemble, and several Dutch ensembles such as LOOS, Combustion Chamber, Tetzepi Ensemble, Zapp String Quartet and De Ereprijs.

His score for the documentary Heroines (2002) earned him Leo and Golden Sheaf Awards and a Gemini Nomination. His score for Prisoners of Age (2005 ) a Leo Award. Other documentaries include Drawing Out the Demos: A Film About the Artist Attila Richard Lukacs (2005), Dark Pines (2006) and Miss Landmine (2009).

John has also produced many large multi-media extravaganzas such as Enter/ Exit (2005) at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, The Ice Age: The World’s First New Music Ice Show (2000), at Kerrisdale Arena, and The Elvis Cantatas (1994, 1996), at St. Andrew’s Wesley Church. CBC Television recently produced a 60-minute version of the Elvis Cantata entitled Cantata for the King for their program, “Opening Night”.

John graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1990, was a frequent participant at The Banff Centre between 1984 and 1994, and studied composition with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory of Music in the Netherlands from 1995 to 1997. In 2001, he was awarded the Canada Council’s Joseph S. Stauffer Prize for music, literature and visual arts. In 2003 John was the second Canadian to be awarded a fellowship to the prestigious Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy.

As a trumpet player, John’s wide range of experiences include everything from performing with international improvisors such as George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Han Bennink, Barry Guy and Kenny Wheeler to punk legends DOA to playing lead trumpet with The Vancouver Symphony. John has performed in the jazz festivals of Berlin, Havana, Chicago, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Montreal.

John also leads the very popular 20-piece salsa/ latin- jazz orchestra, Orquesta Goma Dura, which has released a live CD on CBC’s Mothercorp records and the 14-piece Drum & Light Orchestra

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“John Korsrud is a composer in the truest sense.” – Globe and Mail

“Every scene has its overlooked figure whose importance is not fully grasped by the media. Given his sheer talent and the scope of his music, however, it is nothing short of amazing that composer-trumpeter John Korsrud remains pretty much in the background in discussions about the Vancouver creative music scene, or the Canadian national scene for that matter.” – Jazz Times

“If it feels a little easier to pin a label on John Korsrud, he’d probably understand. Just go ahead and try.

The Vancouver composer, trumpeter and bandleader has spent more than a dozen years zapping musical stereotypes, clearing away a spot on the city’s arts scene that hadn’t really been there before.

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Speaking Hands

Independent
2021

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Crush

Hard Rubber New Music Society
2015

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Rub Harder

Les Disques Victo
2002

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Cruel Yet Fair

Les Disques Victo
1998

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Tight Rope, Short Walk

From: Speaking Hands
By John Korsrud

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