At age 18, award-winning tenor saxophonist and composer Eli Bennett is recognized as one of the most compelling young saxophonists in North America and is currently attending Humber College in Toronto on a full scholarship. He has performed with over a dozen music legends including Oscar Peterson, Hank Jones, Maria Schneider, Roy Hargrove, James Moody, Barry Harris, and Patti Austin.
Throughout Eli’s high-school career, he has traveled the continent to
perform and record with some outstanding musicians. He has also won more awards and honors than any other high-school student in Canada, including the 2005 Rico Reed Award from MusicFest Canada, the 2007 Fraser MacPherson Scholarship, the Dal Richards Scholarship, the Yamaha Kando Award, Canada’s highest IAJE scholarship award, the 2007 DownBeat Magazine Award for best high-school composition for Eli’s “Mistaken Perceptionâ€, and most recently the prestigious Oscar Peterson Grant for Jazz Performance, a $10,000 grant awarded by the Hnatyshyn Foundation, a private Canadian charity which recognizes one outstanding young jazz musician every year.
In February 2007, the GRAMMY Foundation selected Eli as the first horn player in the history of the fifteen year long program to perform with the Gibson/Baldwin GRAMMY Jazz Combo, which was comprised of the most outstanding four high school musicians on the continent.
Eli has also performed at major jazz festivals including the 2006 Ottawa International Jazz Festival where he opened for McCoy Tyner, the 06/07 Telluride Jazz Festival, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and the All-Canadian Jazz Festival in Ontario, where he performed with Canada’s best high school jazz quintet three years consecutively.
In addition to performing on half a dozen film scores, he has also been featured on countless TV and radio shows such as ET Canada, MTV, CTV’s Canada AM, CBC Radio, and DownBeat Magazine. More information can be found on Eli’s website at, www.elibennett.com. I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
