Eugene Ball

Eugene Ball (born 12 October 1972) is an Australian jazz music composer and acclaimed trumpeter who won the best Australian jazz composition award for Fool Poet's Portion at the Australian Jazz Bell Awards in 2008.

Fool Poet's Portion suite is inspired by Norse mythology with three movements: the Death of Baldr, Trickster's Intent, and the Coming of Christianity. It is performed by the Bennetts Lane Big Band which was put together by Eugene Ball, Andrea Keller and Nick Haywood in 2001 as a large ensemble and as a vehicle for original new work. The work was re-orchestrated and performed at a benefit concert for the Melbourne Jazz Co-op in January 2008.

Eugene was awarded second place in the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz Awards in 2003, and was a finalist in the prestigious Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2003 and 2006.

In 2004 Ball and guitarist Steve Magnusson started Lebowski's: a series of musician-run regular concerts in venues not associated with jazz. The following year, 2005, Eugene Ball was an important initiator of the Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival.

Ball was awarded a Melbourne Research Scholarship at the completion of his Masters Degree in Performance and Composition from Melbourne University.

Ball has performed with many other jazz and contemporary musicians including Paul Grabowsky, Mike Nock, Tony Gould, Graeme Lyall, Don Burrows, Jamie Cullum and John Butler; and with groups The Hoodangers, the Andrea Keller Quartet, the Allan Browne Quintet, the Australian Art Orchestra, the Bennetts Lane Big Band and the Ball/Magnusson/Talia trio. He is involved in several musical projects including Kadoonka, ish ish, Aaron Choulai Quintet, and the Messiaen Project performing works by Olivier Messiaen.

He teaches trumpet, improvisation and composition and has directed award winning ensembles at Eltham High School, Monash University and the Victorian College of the Arts. Eugene Ball is an ongoing lecturer in music for Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE's Bachelor Music program at the Fairfield campus.