Discipline: Music Composition

Byron Asher

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: New Orleans, LA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2018

Byron Asher is a clarinetist and saxophonist, composer and improviser based in New Orleans.

Raised in Maryland, he has performed across Europe and the U.S. Festivals include the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and French Quarter Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, Jazz a Vienne in France, and the Karlovy Vary Jazz Festival in the Czech Republic. He has also played shows and festivals in Germany, Poland, and Slovakia and performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

As a composer, Byron's work has been supported by MacDowell, A Studio In The Woods (New Orleans), the Jazz And Heritage Foundation (New Orleans), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (NYC), the Marigny Opera Ballet (New Orleans) and the Puffin Foundation (Teaneck, NJ).

Studios

Sprague-Smith

Byron Asher worked in the Sprague-Smith studio.

In January of 1976, the original Sprague-Smith Studio — built in 1915–1916 and funded by music students of Mrs. Charles Sprague-Smith of the Veltin School — was destroyed by fire. Redesigned by William Gnade, Sr., a Peterborough builder, the fieldstone structure was rebuilt the same year from the foundation up, reusing the original fieldstone. A few…

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