About Josiah
Josiah Boornazian is an award-winning saxophonist, composer, educator, electronic musician, scholar of music, and visual artist primarily active in Salt Lake City, South Texas, Miami, New York City, California, and Europe. He is the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT.
Recording and Composing
As a recording artist known for using the saxophone with electronic effects, Josiah is featured on multiple studio and live albums as a leader, sideman, and collaborator. Releases as a leader include Intersection, Live at Frost, Live at the UTRGV PAC, and ÌKAN ÌPÀKÓ Live, which feature Josiah's original modern jazz compositions and improvisations. Josiah is also prominent as a composer and improviser on the collaborative studio recordings Simply Begin Again and A Dark and Stormy Day (Fresh Sound New Talent Records), which feature a quartet Josiah co-leads with New York-based Italian pianist Alessandro Fadini. Josiah and Alessandro have also released a duo album on the Elegant Noise Records label. Links to hear and purchase Josiah's music can be found here.
Josiah's electronic music alias is "tymebrayker," and his releases, which are available here and on BandCamp, include New Amsterdam, Gables, Life Of, Grind, Time, Fabrik, Souplesse, Gravity, Refract, Icons, Codes, Crank/Shift, Effect, Talk, Tour, Symbols, Luft, Switch, Apart, Motion, Helvetica, Up, Always, Tatata, Ambient I, Top, Blink, and Timeless.
A registered ASCAP composer, Josiah has written for a wide variety of musical contexts. His output includes works for large jazz ensemble, string quartet, solo keyboard, solo saxophone, small jazz ensemble, electronic ensembles, and symphony orchestra. Josiah has been commissioned to compose works for ensembles in California, New York, Texas, and Istanbul, Turkey. For more information, please visit Josiah's online shop and contact Josiah directly to purchase his scores or to commission a new work.
Photo © Adriana Tomeu
Teaching and Scholarship
Josiah is the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah. He has taught applied saxophone and jazz studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, music technology at Broward College, jazz and music appreciation at the City College of New York, and applied saxophone, jazz performance, and musicology at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. Additionally, Josiah teaches private saxophone, music theory, Ableton, and composition lessons. He has been invited to give clinics, guest lectures, and masterclasses at universities, junior colleges, high schools, jazz workshops, and academic conferences throughout the United States and internationally, including the 2020–2023 Jazz Education Network Conferences, the 2023 International Association of Schools of Jazz Conference, the 2023 Utah Music Educators Association Conference, and the 2022 Texas Music Educators Association Conference.
As an educator, Josiah has contributed to the popular jazz education website Learn Jazz Standards.com as a Next Level Jazz Coach, author, podcast guest, and consultant. As a scholar of music, he was awarded a Björn Bärnheim Research Fellowship at the Hogan Jazz Archive during the 2017-2018 academic year. Josiah's peer-reviewed publications include his article "Paul 'Stump' Evans, Russell Procope, and Gary Bartz: 'Alto-itis' and the Neglected Jazz Alto Saxophone Masters," in the 2018 edition of The Saxophone Symposium, "Teaching Jazz History with 'Jelly Roll' Morton, 'Inventor of Jazz,' as a Focal Point for Jazz Authenticity Discourse" and "Mary Lou Williams and the Role of Gender in Jazz: How Can Jazz Culture Respect Women's Voices and Break Down Barriers for Women in Jazz while Simultaneously Acknowledging Uncomfortable Histories?" both published in the in the journal Jazz Education in Research and Practice, "Nick LaRocca Vs. 'Jelly Roll' Morton: Notions of Authorship in the 'Tiger Rag' Controversy" in Jazz Perspectives, and “Topics vs. Timelines: Restructuring Jazz History Curricula for Today's Classroom” in Jazz Education in Research and Practice. Josiah's educational writings also include his paper "Teaching College-Level Jazz Skills Using Interactive Digital Technologies and the Flipped Classroom Model" and his e-book Creative Improvisation: A Concise Method.
Josiah holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Miami Frost School of Music, a Master of Arts degree from the City College of New York, and a Bachelor of Music degree from California State University, Northridge.
Performing
Josiah performs jazz and electronic music regularly in and around his home base of Salt Lake City, Utah at venues such as the Utah Valley University Noorda Center, University of Utah Libby Gardner Concert Hall, Utah State University's Chase Fine Arts Center, the Gallivan Center, the Viridian Center, La Caille, the Jazz Mentors Foundation, the Mountain America Exposition Center, Millcreek Common, Kilby Court, the Clubhouse SLC, Old Cuss, Felt, Sawadee, the Grand America Hotel, Woodbine Food Hall, the Pearl, the Alta Club, Ballroom Utah, the Pioneer Building, Red Butte Gardens, the Green Room, Casot, the Capitol Theater, Caputo's Market & Deli, Hopkins Brewing Company, the International, and on campus at the University of Utah. In Utah, Josiah is a member of the Hot House West Swing Orchestra. Regionally, Josiah has also performed at Boise State University, Utah State University, the Gene Harris Jazz Festival, Coiled Wines (Boise, ID), and Old Swede Brew Hall (Boise, ID). He has also performed and toured in New York, Idaho, New Orleans, South Florida, South Texas, California, and Europe, where he has performed at venues such as Jazz Club Torino and Le Ginestre Jazz Club in Turin, Italy; the Galerie Depardieu in Nice, France; and CinemaPRO in Bucharest, Romania.
New York performances include appearances at venues such as the Jazz Gallery, the 55 Bar, Rockwood Music Hall, the Firehouse Space, Trinity Wall Street, the ShapeShifter Lab, NuBlu, Zinc Bar, the Triad Theater, Somethin’ Jazz Club, The Shrine, Silvana, Caffe Vivaldi, the Porch NYC, and Club Bonafide. In New York, Josiah has performed with artists such as Drew Gress, David Binney, Wayne Krantz, Ari Hoenig, Donny McCaslin, Dan Weiss, John Escreet, Jacob Sacks, Fima Ephron, Jonathan Crayford, Obed Calvaire, Will Vinson, Matt Brewer, Ben Wendel, Eivind Opsvik, Ferenc Nemeth, Alan Ferber, Brad Mason, John Daversa, Kenny Wollesen, the Gil Evans Orchestra, Mark Egan, Lew Soloff, Miles Evans, Mike Clark, Gil Goldstein, Yana Bibb, Jerry Watts, Nir Felder, Andrea Veneziani, Alessandro Fadini, and Massimo Biolcati.
In Miami and New Orleans, Josiah has performed with a variety of artists including Mark Farina, Dave Liebman, Dave Holland, Nick Smart, Diane Schuur, Dave Grusin, Arturo Sandoval, John Faddis, Jimmy Heath, Ignacio Berroa, John Beasley, the New York Voices, Tom Scott, Cyrille Aimee, Dafnis Prieto, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Marcus Strickland, Sal Lozano, Will Downing, John Daversa, Errol Rackipov, Svet Stoyanov, John Yarling, Kate Reid, Melvin Butler, Steve Miller, Jimmie Vaughan, Mike Flanigin, Brianna Thomas, David Ake, Chuck Bergeron, the South Florida Jazz Orchestra, Janis Seigel, and Shelly Berg. In South Florida, Josiah has performed at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Jazz in the Gables, Jazz at Jackson, the GroundUP Music Festival Miami, Lagniappe, Le Chat Noir, The Arts Garage, Ball and Chain, The Anderson, The Globe, Sunset Tavern, The Fish House, Coco Walk, The Standard, Pinecrest Gardens, Books and Books, Space Mountain Miami, the Open Stage, the University of Miami's Gusman Concert Hall, and The Breakers. In addition to in-person performances, Josiah has performed for live broadcasts on South Florida's public jazz radio station, 88.9 FM - WDNA, and the University of Miami's radio station 90.5 FM - WVUM.
Josiah has also performed in many of Los Angeles's premier venues, including the Valley Performing Arts Center, the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the Jazz Bakery, the Blue Whale, the Baked Potato, Catalina's Jazz Club, the Curve Line Space, and Vitello's. Additionally, Josiah has toured northern and central California. He has performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival (2010, 2011), the California Jazz Conservatory (formerly known as the Berkeley "Jazzschool”), the Bakersfield Jazz Workshop, the Bakersfield Jazz Festival (2005, 2006, 2007), the San Joaquin Valley Jazz Festival (2010), and the Pasadena Jazz Institute, among others.
In the Rio Grande Valley, Josiah has performed jazz and electronic music and given public lectures at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Performing Arts Complex, Dodici, the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, the Texas Southmost College Performing Arts Center, Las Ramblas, Broken Sprocket, El Hueso de Fraile, Sidebar, Angelita's Casa de Cafe, and Bodega Tavern and Kitchen. As a painter, Josiah has had his visual artworks exhibited at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art in Brownsville, TX. For those who missed it, Artropolis published an interview and virtual walk-through of the exhibition here.
Please visit Josiah's "Gigs" page for information about upcoming events and announcements about future projects and performances.