Ken Schaphorst is a composer, performer, and educator currently chairing the Jazz Studies and Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Before moving to Boston in 2001, Schaphorst served as Director of Jazz Studies at Lawrence University

Lawrence University

Lawrence University is a selective, private liberal arts college with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Lawrence University is known for its rigorous academic environment. Founded in 1847, the first classes were held on November 12, 1849...

 in Appleton, Wisconsin for ten years. Schaphorst is also a founding member of the Jazz Composers Alliance, a Boston-based non-profit corporation promoting new music in the jazz idiom since 1985. Schaphorst studied at Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....

, New England Conservatory of Music

New England Conservatory of Music

The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...

, and Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

, where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts in 1990. His composition teachers have included Thomas Oboe Lee

Thomas Oboe Lee

Thomas Oboe Lee is a Chinese American composer.- Life :He and his family left Communist China in 1949, and lived in Hong Kong for ten years until 1959, when he moved to São Paulo, Brazil. He emigrated to the USA in the summer of 1966.His musical education began in Brazil during the Bossa Nova craze...

, Gerald Levinson

Gerald Levinson

Gerald Levinson is an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Life:At university, he studied with George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and George Rochberg. After college, Levinson went to study composition with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory...

, William Thomas McKinley

William Thomas McKinley

William Thomas McKinley is an American composer and jazz pianist. He has written more than 300 musical compositions, many of which have been recorded by such ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony...

 and Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands

Bernard Rands is a composer of contemporary classical music.Rands studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy.He held residencies...

. Schaphorst was awarded Composition Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988 and 1991, the Wisconsin Arts Board in 1997, Meet the Composer Grants in 1987 and 1997, and was a Music Composition Finalist in the Massachusetts Fellowship Program in 1986. Schaphorst has released six recordings as a leader: Ken Schaphorst Big Band: Making Lunch (1989), Ken Schaphorst Big Band: After Blue (1991), Ken Schaphorst Ensemble: When the Moon Jumps (1994), Ken Schaphorst: Over the Rainbow (1997), Ken Schaphorst Big Band: Purple (1999) and Ken Schaphorst: Indigenous Technology (2002).

External links

• Ken Schaphorst's page at NEC
• [ Ken Schaphorst's bio at allmusic.com]
• Ken Schaphorst's page at allaboutjazz.com