Karlton Hester

Karlton Hester

Karlton E. Hester, Ph.D. (composer/flutist/saxophonist), began his career as a composer and recording artist in Los Angeles where he worked as a studio musician and music educator. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is currently Director of "Jazz" Studies (and member of the Digital Arts and New Media faculty) at the University of California in Santa Cruz. As performer on both flute and saxophone, he is founding music director of the Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band (in San Francisco), director of Hesterian Musicism, and served as the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at Cornell University from 1991-2001. Hester specializes in premeditated, spontaneous and electro-acoustic composition. His compositions span a wide range; from numerous solo cycles for various woodwinds to chamber configurations, music videos and electro-acoustic symphonic works written in an eclectic array of styles.

ARI Supported project:  Surge is a 2021-2022 arts program on the theme of Afrofuturism, spearheaded by composer/performer Karlton Hester, choreographer Gerald Casel, and Rachel Nelson, director of the IAS. The program will commence in Fall 2021 with quarterly online events, and culminate in a festival held between UCSC and the MAH in May 2022. The programming will introduce broad audiences to notable artists, musicians, poets, filmmakers, and scholars working within Afrofuturist traditions.

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