|  Born
in Fort Worth, Texas in 1954, pianist John Salmon has had a lifelong fascination
and involvement with Dave Brubeck's music. As a precocious five-year-old, he first
discovered Brubeck's "Time Out" album among his older sister's jazz
record collection and immediately became a fan. As a fifteen-year-old leader of
his own jazz trio, Salmon improvised on Brubeck's "Brandenburg Gate"
and "The Duke" and his own polymetric/polychordal pieces on a European
tour. In 1994 some 34 years after his first encounter with the jazz great, Salmon
helped award Brubeck an honorary doctorate from the Gerhard Mercator University
in Duisburg, Germany.
John Salmon received
Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts (philosophy) degrees from Texas Christian
University; the Soloist's Diploma from the Hochschule fur Musik, Freiburg im Breisgau,
Germany; the Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School; and the Doctor
of Musical Arts degree from The University of Texas at Austin. He won prizes from
the Busoni, University of Maryland, Beethoven Foundation and Premio Jaen competitions,
and has performed both classical and jazz concerts throughout Europe and the United
States. Since 1989, he has been on the faculty of The University of North Carolina
at Greensboro. |
