Saxophonist Alexander Bone named as winner of the 2019 Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
The Royal Academy of Music and Edition Records have announced that the 2019 winner of the ninth Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize is the talented saxophonist and composer, Alexander Bone. Press release att.
The Royal Academy of Music announces the ninth recipient of the Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize
The Royal Academy of Music and Edition Records are pleased to announce that the 2019 winner of the ninth Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize is the talented saxophonist and composer, Alexander Bone.
The Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize is awarded each year to a young artist who demonstrates excellence in both performance and composition, and is selected from all graduating jazz musicians at the Royal Academy of Music, London. The prize includes the release of the artist’s proposed recording on the Edition Records label: Alexander Bone will release his album in 2020.
Bone follows in the footsteps of eight highly acclaimed previous winners including saxophonist Josh Arcoleo, vocalist Lauren Kinsella and last year’s winner, vibraphonist Jonny Mansfield, whose Elftet album on Edition Records, was released this month on 21 June.
The judging panel, which consisted of Edition Records founder and CEO Dave Stapleton, the Academy’s Head of Jazz, Nick Smart, and Evan Parker, saxophonist and lifelong collaborator of the late Wheeler, met in June to decide the winner.
Evan Parker said;
“Alexander Bone impressed me not just in his writing, arranging and playing abilities, but in his giftedness in all three aspects of music performance. The added quality, which was decisive in his winning the prize, is his keen sense of how to project all these skills. He had not just assembled some like-minded and very gifted players to run through his charts, he seemed to have inspired them to share his vision for how a band can communicate, firstly amongst themselves, but by doing this to generate real involvement from the audience.”
Edition Records Founder and CEO Dave Stapleton commented;
“Each and every year I’m amazed at the breadth of talent and musicianship that is presented to us. The skill, command and facility they have as players is inspiring, and compositionally they are armed with a vast ability to write for both large and small ensembles with originality and vibrancy. Alexander Bone is a musician that exudes all these qualities in bucket loads, is energetically confident yet humble and engaging. We are looking forward to working with him in developing his career, which has already seen him win awards and acclaim. To collaborate with him on his debut and to consolidate the praise he has earned, will be a joy.”
About Alexander Bone
Alexander Bone is a 22 year old saxophonist, composer, arranger and producer based in London. The inaugural ‘BBC Young Musician - Jazz Award’ winner, he has performed twice as a soloist on the BBC Proms. First on ‘The Last Night of the Proms’ in September 2015, performing two of his own orchestral arrangements broadcast on BBC Two. Most recently he performed as part of the 2018 Young Musician Prom at the Royal Albert Hall alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra. He previously worked with this orchestra in 2016, when he recorded for ‘Friday Night Is Music Night’ on BBC Radio 2.
Alexander works closely as a studio and touring musician with artists including Nile Rodgers, Rudimental, Cory Wong (Vulfpeck), Newton Faulkner and Kylie Minogue. Alongside this, he leads his own bands playing original music at venues & festivals across the UK & Europe including London Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scotts (Jazzwise Festival) and Manchester Jazz Festival. In 2018, the ‘Alexander Bone Quartet’ toured Czech Republic for 2 weeks.
As a composer, he has received commissions from Marsden Jazz Festival and Greater Manchester Jazz Orchestra.
In 2016, he was voted the winner of the British Jazz Awards “Rising Star” by members of the public and in 2019 he was presented the Richard Turner Award through the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied jazz saxophone.
Alexander is a Yanagisawa Saxophones and D’Addario Woodwinds performing artist, and recipient of the 2019 Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize. He is set to record for Edition Records later this year.