About Dylan Ward

Acclaimed for his “ethereal saxophone playing” and “distinctive experimental approach” (Vital Weekly), Dylan Ward is a musician/improviser/sound artist specializing in experimental electroacoustic music that explores consciousness across natural, human, cybernetic, and historical planes. Ward has released recordings on the Neuma, Mother Brain, and XAS record labels that have been described as “meditative, jarring, and cosmic…highly creative” (Take Effect Reviews), and has been praised for presenting music that is “clear and coherent in its discourse, original in its sounds, and as beautiful and intellectually stimulating as it is playful” (Pan M 360). Ward’s musical interpretations have been praised by American composer David Biedenbender as “amazing…sensitive, beautiful, intense, and powerful” and Grammy Award winning composer Augusta Read Thomas as “spectacular.”

Ward has performed nationally at the Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend Festival, Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab, NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, Mostly Modern Festival, Oh My Ears Festival, Charlotte SHOUT! Festival, Charlotte BOOM Festival, Kansas City Contemporary Music Festival, Kansas City Open Spaces, iHearIC Series, Charlotte Street Foundation Capsule Series, Kansas City Classical Revolution, and Kansas City Public Library Series, among others. He has also appeared as a soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, Georgia Philharmonic, Raleigh Symphony, and Jackson Heights Orchestra, and as a chamber musician in venues including Lincoln Center, Constellation Chicago, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Mesa Arts Center, Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Pianodrome at Grace AME Zion Church, Camp North End, Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, and Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Ward holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Missouri–Kansas City. He holds previous degrees from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Ward’s creative and scholarly work has received funding from the NC Arts Council, NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, City of Charlotte, Infusion Fund, Foundation for the Carolinas, UMKC School of Graduate Studies, Charlotte Street Foundation, Semans Art Fund, UNCSA Career Development Office, Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, and William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust. Ward is a JLV Sound Ambassador and endorses all JLV Sound products.

For more information, please visit:

http://dylan-ward-saxophone.squarespace.com
https://dylanwardsax.bandcamp.com/album/tourmaline
https://dionysus3.bandcamp.com/album/hocket

Email: Dylan.Ward@musicarts.com