Michael Webster

Michael Webster’s compositions have been played by Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell & Arturo O’Farrill at Birdland and by John Benitez at the Blue Note in New York City. His big band arrangements have been recorded by Grammy winning producer/engineer Al Schmitt, commissioned by the University of Toronto, and performed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Puerto Rico and across the United States.In 2002, Michael won the J.B.C. Watkins Award for Postgraduate Studies, along with a $24,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, which enabled him to move to New York City. Michael graduated from the Manhattan School of Music in May 2004 where he earned his Master of Music degree in jazz composition under the tutelage of Michael Abene (GRP All-Star Big Band; Musical Director, WDR Big Band, Cologne).While at MSM, Michael began collaborating with Grammy-winning bassist John Benitez (Chick Corea, John Scofield, Danilo Perez, Roy Hargrove) co-writing and arranging music for the John Benitez Quintet and the 12-piece John Benitez Gospel Latin Jazz Project. In addition to an album’s worth of songs, the duo is now writing an instructional book about odd meters in clave, fusing traditional Puerto Rican & Cuban rhythms with 5, 7, 9, 11 & 13 beat metrical forms.Since 2003, Michael has also been collaborating with Puerto Rican trombonist/percussionist William Cepeda (Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra, Slide Hampton, Lester Bowie), as an arranger for big band and symphony orchestra; and as a saxophonist in Cepeda’s International Sextet.In 2007 William Cepeda will premiere Posesíon, a full concert-length work for big band, strings & dancers rooted in the traditional Bomba and Plena rhythms of Puerto Rico and co-written, arranged and orchestrated by Michael Webster. This concert will mark the debut of a work that has taken the better part of two years to realize.In September 2005 Michael recorded his debut CD as a leader entitled Leading Lines. The album presents 8 original works, including the centerpiece “Horizons” for jazz nonet, woodwind quintet & strings, as well as a 7/4 clave version of Irving Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean”. Featured are John Benitez on bass, trumpeter Michael Rodriguez (Charlie Haden, Lincoln Center’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra) and Gordon Webster on piano.