JOSIAH BOORNAZIAN

Dr. Boornazian has consistently presented research and pedagogical approaches locally, nationally, and internationally. He has been consitently invited to give clinics, guest lectures, and masterclasses at universities, junior colleges, high schools, jazz workshops, and academic conferences throughout the United States and internationally, including the Jazz Education Network (JEN: USA), the International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ: Finland and Austria), the International Network for Artistic Research in Jazz (INARJ: Austria), Rhythm Changes (Netherlands), the Australasian Jazz and Improvisation Research Network Conference (AJIRN: Australia and New Zealand), the Utah Music Educators Association Conference, the Utah Academy of Science Arts and Letters, and the Texas Music Educators Association Conference.

As a scholar and researcher, his accomplishments include earning invitations for 2022–2023 to give clinics internationally at the Torino Jazz Club in Italy, the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Nice in France, and the 2023 International Association of Schools of Jazz’s Conference in Finland. Nationally, he was invited to give and electronic-influenced jazz performance and clinic at the University of North Texas (UNT) in 2023 (UNT is a historically prestigious institution for jazz education: they have one of the oldest collegiate Jazz Studies programs in the US). He was also invited to perform or give jazz history presentations and jazz improvisation clinics every year since 2020 at the Jazz Education Network (JEN) Conferences. Working with JEN is significant because JEN is widely considered the largest and most prestigious gathering of jazz educators in the US, and possibly across the globe. Also, at the regional level, the Utah Music Educators Association (2023-2025) and Texas Music Educators Association (2022) have invited Dr. Boornazian to give clinics at their conferences, including on topics such as “How to Practice and Perform Using Digital Audio Workstations” and “How to Teach Jazz Students to Authentically Swing,” and in the fall of 2022 Dr. Boornazian was also invited to give a performance and clinic at Utah State University. 

Dr. Boornazian has also been invited on multiple occasions since 2023 to present at the Inernational Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) Conferences in recent years. As an author, Dr. Boornazian has contributed more than fifty articles to the popular jazz education website Learn Jazz Standards.com. As a scholar of music, he was awarded a Björn Bärnheim Research Fellowship at the Hogan Jazz Archive in New Orleans during the 2017-2018 academic year. Dr. Boornazian's peer-reviewed publications include several scholarly journal articles in The Saxophone Symposium, Jazz Education in Research and Practice (JERP), Jazz Perspectives (JP), the International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) Journal of Applied Jazz Research, and his e-book Creative Improvisation: A Concise Method. JERP, JP, and the IASJ journal are widely regarded as leading scholarly jazz journals in the field. His publications in the IASJ journal have reached over 3,500 downloads, with broader online readership not fully captured in these figures.

As a music faculty member, in addition to conducting scholarly research, publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals, and giving lectures and clinics at regional, national, and international conferences, Dr. Boornazian maintains an active profile as a performing and recording artist as well. Recent international performances (some of which garnered attention in mainstream press outlets such as La Stampa) include Cantavenna (Allessandria, Italy), Jazz Club Torino (Turin, Italy), ONO - Das Kulturlocal (Bern, Switzerland), and Galerie Depardieu (Nice, France). At the national level, recent performances include in jazz clubs and universities across the US including Portland State University (Portland, OR), UNT (Dallas, TX), the Gene Harris Jazz Festival (Boise, ID), and jazz clubs such as The Shrine, Silvana, and The Porch in New York City. Dr. Boornazian performs regularly at the local level as well in order to maintain visibility for the university’s jazz program.

Album releases include Future Butterlfy (Wesmoon REcords), Chasing the Muse (Jazz Hang Records), Conversazioni (Elegant Noise Records), A Dark and Stormy Day and Simply Begin Again (FSNT), which feature Dr. Boornazian's original modern jazz compositions, as well as several self-published electronic and live jazz albums using an international online digital distribution platform (DistroKid) which exclusively feature Dr. Boornazian's original compositions, sound design with soft synths, album artwork, and production.Dr. Boornazian is also an abstract painter, and the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art (BMFA) hosted an exhibition of his visual artworks (and accompanying musical performances) during the summer of 2020. Dr. Boornazian has also been collaborating with Dr. Mark Ramirez from his former institution the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). They formed an improvisation-based jazz duo which incorporates innovative performance practices that utilize free improvisation and live digital effects, and they have performed together in this format for several faculty recitals during recent years in Texas, Utah, and Oregon. Dr. Boornazian's duo with Dr. Ramirez was also invited to perform and give a clinic/masterclass at the International Percussion Institute (IPI) in Scotland in August of 2023.