Profile
Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane IraBloom has been full-time faculty at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music since 1989, and holds degrees from Yale University and Yale School of Music. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz and winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition, the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Award for lifetime service to jazz, Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Award for soprano saxophone, the IWJ Jazz Masters Award, and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for jazz innovation. Bloom also has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid 6083janeirabloom). She adjudicated the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition, the BMI Jazz Workshop Composition Prize, and served on a distinguished panel of faculty composers at the new Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute at the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. Recipient of the Doris Duke Jazz New Works Award, and fellowships from the NEA, Rockefeller, Pew & Ford Foundations, she has performed, recorded, and/or collaborated with Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Fred Hersch, George Coleman, Kenny Wheeler, Julian Priester, Rufus Reid, Bob Brookmeyer, Mark Dresser, Bobby Previte, Matt Wilson, Jerry Granelli, Marc Copland, Jay Clayton and Cleo Laine. Her compositions and commissions include the American Composers Orchestra, St. Luke¹s Chamber Ensemble, Pilobolus & Paradigm Dance Companies, NY City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, the Baryshnikov Arts Center, and the NASA Art Program. Her film credits include John Sayles’s SILVER CITY, SHADOW OF A DOUBT for NBC-TV, and a short film on Jules Feiffer’s MODERN DANCER. She has also produced and recorded for CBS, ENJA, JMT, Arabesque Jazz Recordings and Artistshare. Bloom has been presented in the most prestigious halls, clubs, and festivals around the world, and a festival in Brooklyn, NY featuring cutting edge woman artists was named in her honor (the 2009 Bloom Festival).