By THIRSTY
Pianist-Composer
Jon Snell is a recipient of ASCAP’s Young Jazz Composer’s Award and holds
degrees from the Manhattan School of Music (MM) and the University
of Northern Iowa (BA), where he was the recipient of the William H.
Borden Award for Outstanding Achievement in Jazz and the Purple and
Old Gold Award for Conspicuous Achievement in Music. Currently, he is a member
of the jazz piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music’s
Precollege Division, where he teaches courses in jazz theory and ear
training and coaches a student quintet.
His
compositions are heavily influenced by jazz (Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Brad
Mehldau) as well as classical (Bach, Chopin), pop and world music. In New York,
he has performed as a pianist at venues such as Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz
at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Knickerbocker Bar
and Grill, Jazz at Kitano, 55 Bar, Cornelia Street Cafe, The
Django, and ShapeShifter Lab, and in the bands of Luis Bonilla, Ethan
Helm, Javier Nero, Sam Dillon, Pureum Jin and Nate Sparks.
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| Jon Snell |
Snell
co-leads the jazz quintet Commons Collective, which released its fourth
album in May 2018, along with a duo project with saxophonist Chris Merz,
with whom he released a live album.
Stay Thirsty Magazine
is pleased to name Jon Snell a 2019 SPOTLIGHT ARTIST because of his
originality, his inventiveness and his sophisticated approach to the creation
of new works of music. He is clearly someone to keep an eye on in the future.
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