Don Byron - Musical Career

Musical Career

Byron is a gifted performer on clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophone, but on many of his albums he subordinates his own playing to the exploration of a particular style. Byron is representative of a new generation of conservatory-trained jazz musicians who explore and record in a rich array of styles; his first album, Tuskegee Experiments, is a stew of classical avant garde and jazz improvisation, while albums such as Ivey Divey represent a straight-ahead exploration of the traditional jazz 'tune'.

Byron is a practicing jazz historian, and some of his albums have been recreations (in spirit) of forgotten moments in the history of popular music. Examples are Plays the Music of Mickey Katz and Bug Music. Byron has been nominated for a Grammy award for his bass clarinet solo on "I Want to Be Happy" from Ivey-Divey.

Byron has worked as a professor at The University at Albany (2005-2009) and MIT (2007-2008), teaching composition, improvisation, music history, clarinet, and saxophone.

Byron is a member of the Black Rock Coalition. He has recorded with Allen Toussaint, Marc Ribot, Vernon Reid, Bill Frisell, Joe Henry, and others.

Byron was also a judge for the 2nd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.

In 2001, Byron performed "Bli Blip" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot + Indigo, a tribute to Duke Ellington, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease.

Byron was named a 2007 USA Gund Foundation Fellow and awarded a US$50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists. He also won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007.

Byron won the prestigious Rome Prize Fellowship awarded by the American Academy in Rome in 2009, and his Seven Etudes for solo piano, commissioned by pianist Lisa Moore made him a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Musical Composition in 2009.