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BIOGRAPHY
Alex Heitlinger
was born in Minneapolis in 1980 and started playing
the trombone at age 11 at the encouragement of
his mother, a music teacher. He received a full
scholarship to attend the University of Colorado
in Boulder and received a BM in trombone performance
in 2002 and was the first jazz player to receive
the prestigious Fiske Performance award from the
CU brass department. Heitlinger’s also received
awards from Down Beat in 2002 for outstanding
performances with the university’s jazz
combo and big band and co-founded and helped run
the Coalition for Creative Music, a Boulder-based
non-profit arts organization. He cites his trombone
studies with Bill Stanley and lessons in improvisation
and composition with pianist-composer Art Lande
as major influences on his creative development.
From 1998 until the winter of 2004 Heitlinger
performed in the Boulder-Denver area in ensembles
ranging from big bands, symphony orchestras and
brass, salsa and Dixieland bands to Latin jazz,
funk, free jazz and afro-pop groups. In the spring
of 2004 he moved to Jersey City, NJ, to concentrate
on his composing and be closer to and participate
in the vibrant New York City jazz scene and by
that summer had already gigged with the Duke Ellington
Orchestra.
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