Michael Webster

Saxophone, clarinet, flute and composition

When I was four years old I decided that if Mozart could write a symphony, so could I!  While the resulting piece may not have compared to anything Mozart wrote, it marked the beginning of a fascination with composing & performing my own music that continues to motivate me to this day.... 

Growing up in a family of musicians exposed me to lots of great music: Chopin to Charlie Parker, Bluegrass to Bebop, Rock to R'n'B.  My curiosity and love for diverse styles led me to study piano, viola, guitar and french horn before realizing that saxophone was my true calling. 

Later on I became intrigued by the idea of improvisation, and was particularly inspired by my high school music teacher, Tim Stanutz, who was a jazz bass player and encouraged everyone to improvise.  He also encouraged me to play flute and clarinet, in order to make myself more marketable as a professional sax player.  By my senior year, I was hiring Tim to play a weekly gig in my own trio at a local jazz club.  I benefitted tremendously from his experience, and I like to think he was motivated by my enthusiasm. 

My passion for jazz grew as I discovered that improvising is a lot like composing, only in real time!   In the jazz context, improv combined freedom to play whatever notes I wanted within an organized structure of harmony.  I began to write jazz tunes as vehicles for improvisation and would later experiment with improvised sections in longer, more formal pieces.

Over the years I've come to appreciate just how much I was affected by Tim's passion for sharing music.  He thrived on exposing his students to new things --  making them think or see things differently -- even things they thought they had seen or heard a thousand times before. 

As a teacher, I try to guide my students as they discover their own passions about music.  While a solid foundation in theory & technique is definitely important, I emphasize creativity and finding a personal connection with the music each student is playing.  

I believe that my job is to  challenge students to define their own goals and to help them achieve them, whether the goal is as simple as learning a particular tune, or as ambitious as writing a symphony.

www.onemanmusic.com