Noah Getz is a jazz and classical saxophonist based in Washington, DC. He has performed at major venues throughout the United States, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, The Phillips Collection, The National Gallery of Art, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, the Music Center at Strathmore, World Saxophone Congress XIII, and as the guest soloist for the MOSA Concert Series Saxophone Summit in New York City. Dr. Getz received a first-round Grammy nomination in 2002 for his contribution with the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet to America’s Millennium Tribute to Adolphe Sax, Vol. V, and he has been featured on albums including The American Muse and Leo Kraft: Chamber Symphony 2. In 2007, his album Crosscurrents, which explores the intersection of jazz and contemporary classical music, was released by Albany Records. His next album, featuring works written for him, will be released in 2010.
Dr. Getz has commissioned and premiered several works for the saxophone, including recent collaborations with Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Aaron Jay Kernis and Lewis Spratlan. He premiered Fernando Benadon’s Hidden Charges with the Empyrean Ensemble in 2007 and will release the premiere recording of David Amram’s Prologue and Scherzo in 2009. In 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Brant selected Dr. Getz to perform his Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra for the first time in 50 years.
In addition to performing classical repertoire, Dr. Getz maintains an active schedule performing jazz. He is the alto saxophonist and founding member of the Levine School Jazz Quintet, an Artist-In-Residence ensemble at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC, with recent performances at Blues Alley, the Swiss Embassy, the Washington Convention Center, and the Music Center at Strathmore. Dedicated to education, the Quintet often recreates famous jazz concerts for new audiences, including the legendary Jazz at Massey Hall concert (originally featuring bebop greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie) and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet.
Dr. Getz has presented masterclasses, recitals and lectures at universities across the country, including at Mannes-The New School of Music, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Davis, Queens College, Johns Hopkins University, Aaron Copland School of Music, State University of New York-Fredonia, Florida State University, and the University of Puerto Rico. He has been a guest lecturer at the International Saxophone Symposium, the Sigurd Rascher Centennial Celebration, the North American Saxophone Alliance National Convention, and on the Blue Note Lecture Series in Washington, DC. Dr. Getz is the Saxophone Musician-In-Residence at American University, where he instructs private students, coaches saxophone ensembles and leads the American University Jazz Workshop, and at the Levine School of Music, where he instructs jazz saxophone students.