Josiah Boornazian

Josiah Boornazian is an award-winning saxophonist, composer, educator, electronic musician, and scholar of music most recently active in Utah, Europe, South Texas, Miami, New York City, Washington state, and California. He is currently the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Dr. Boornazian has also taught at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Broward College, the City College of New York, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music. As a performing and recording artist, Dr. Boornazian has been cultivating an innovative, technology-based jazz performance practice for several years, which began with his adoption of digital effects pedals for live performances. He has continued to develop his creative musical approach to include the use of software-based synthesizers, evolving electronic effects, and improvised digital accompaniment using Ableton, the popular digital audio workstation. He has performed with a stylistically diverse collection of musicians including Mark Farina, Dave Liebman, Chris Potter, Dave Holland, Nick Smart, Diane Schuur, Dave Grusin, Arturo Sandoval, John Faddis, Jimmy Heath, Ignacio Berroa, John Beasley, Dafnis Prieto, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Drew Gress, David Binney, Wayne Krantz, Ari Hoenig, Donny McCaslin, Will Vinson, Ben Wendel, Ferenc Nemeth, Alan Ferber, John Daversa, Kenny Wollesen, the Gil Evans Orchestra, Lew Soloff, Massimo Biolcati, Shelly Berg, the South Florida Jazz Orchestra, and the Hot House West Swing Orchestra, among others.