Jane Ira Bloom

Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 45 years. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, the Downbeat International Critics Poll & Jazz Journalists Association Award for soprano saxophone, the Mary Lou Williams Award for lifetime service to jazzand the Charlie Parker Fellowship for jazz innovation. She is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid: 6083janeirabloom). Her trio Cd “Early Americans” received a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album and made numerous year end best lists. Her recent duo recording “Picturing the Invisible” inspired by the B & W photography of NYC photographer Berenice Abbott received a Grammy nomination for Best Immersive Audio. JIB finds inspiration in creating exploratory music with improvising musicians around the world and has participated in several international ‘remote’ events including a performance at the United Nations that linked improvising musicians in Korea, China, New York, and San Diego. From 2008–2011 she curated a discussion/ performance series on improvisation at the Philoctetes Center for the Multi-Disciplinary Study of Imagination presenting a wide range of programs with jazz and world music artists. She has recorded and produced 20 albums of her music dating from 1977 to the present and looks forward to the 2025 release of her latest immersive sound recording “Songs in Space” featuring drummer Bobby Previte, bassist Mark Helias, & pianist Dominic Fallacaro. Bloom is a professor at New School University’s College of the Performing Arts in NYC and holds degrees from Yale University and the Yale School of Music.