Patrick Zimmerli

Even in high school, tenor saxophonist Patrick Zimmerli was receiving accolades and awards for his jazz playing. However, in early 2000, he was not active in the jazz scene, nor was he playing much horn. Rather, he was devoting himself to classical composition. It was as a composer, after all, that Zimmerli received his highest honor; he won the first annual BMI/Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Composers Competition in 1993. As a jazz player, Zimmerli has worked with Kevin Hays, Bill Stewart, and Don Sickler, among others. In 1995, he led a quintet called the Jazz Ambassadors, which recorded a self-titled album and toured South and East Africa. Soon after, he took on a "guest composer" role with a New York-based, musician-run non-profit organization called the Jazz Composers Collective, which commissioned him to write Twelve Sacred Dances, ultimately released as a CD by Arabesque in 1998. The Patrick Zimmerli Ensemble released its debut recording, Explosion, in 1997. A CD titled Expansion was forthcoming in June of 2000. For a time Zimmerli held a faculty position at his alma mater, Columbia University, but he has since left academia. As a classical composer, he has written for and performed with Speculum Musicae and the Riverside Symphony. A Zimmerli piano concerto featuring Ethan Iverson with Metamorphosen was performed in Boston in early 2000. Other Zimmerli pieces have been performed by the Belgian ensemble Octurn and the French jazz group Kartet. ~ David R. Adler, Rovi