Felipe Salles

Felipe Salles

Fellow: Awarded 2018
Field of Study: Music Composition

Competition: US & Canada

A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Felipe Salles is a saxophonist and composer whose work brings together musical influences from his homeland, the jazz idiom, as well as the contemporary classical idiom. He has had works performed by The Metropole Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Violas, Meta4 String Quartet, Arno Bornkamp, Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra, New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra, and New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble, among others.

Salles has won several awards, including a 2015-16 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, a 2009-10 French American Jazz Exchange Grant, and a 2005-06 Chamber Music America New Works: Creation and Presentation Grant Program, sponsored by The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He was also awarded First Place in the 2001 Concurso SGAE de Jazz “TETE MONTOLIU”, with his composition The Return of The Chromo Sapiens.

An active musician in the US since 1995, Felipe has worked and recorded with prominent jazz artists, including Randy Brecker, David Liebman, Lionel Loueke, Jerry Bergonzi, Chico Pinheiro, Jovino Santos Neto, Oscar Stagnaro, Duduka Da Fonseca, Maucha Adnet, Tony Lujan, Luciana Souza, and Bob Moses. He has toured extensively in Europe, North and South Americas, India and Australia, as a sideman and as a leader of his own group.

Salles currently leads both The Felipe Salles Group and The Felipe Salles’ Interconnections Ensemble (18-pieces), and works as a member of the New World Jazz Composers Octet, Kyle Saulnier’s Awakening Orchestra, Alex Alvear’s Mango Blue and Gonzalo Grau’s (Grammy Nominated) La Clave Secreta.

Felipe Salles is currently an Associate Professor of Jazz and African-American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Profile photograph by Jeff Schneider

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