CSU - Department of Music - Faculty & Staff - Alphabetical Listing

Wil Swindler

Associate Director of Jazz Bands, Jazz Studies, Saxophone

Composer and Saxophonist, Wil Swindler currently resides near Denver, Colorado where he leads Wil Swindler's Elevenet and serves as musical director for both the latin jazz group Onda and vocalist Barron Steffen. He is a performer and contributing composer with the 9th+Lincoln Orchestra, the Colorado Jazz Orchestra, Red Sylvester, and the Legacy Jazz Orchestra. He also performs with the Fort Collins Symphony, Manny Lopez's Latin Jazz Project, the Gretchen Troop Band and the Boulder Philharmonic, as well as playing productions at both the Buell Theatre and the Arvada Center for the Arts. In addition to receiving IAJE's Gil Evans Fellowship for 2008, Wil has recently completed commissions from Denver University for original music for his Elevenet as well as premiered a new work for saxophone quartet at the World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand. He has one CD released on the NohJoh Music Label (October 2006) with his Austin, TX-based group the Chamber Jazz Ensemble. Two of Mr. Swindler's compositions are featured on the latest CD release (December 2007) by the 9th+Lincoln Orchestra. His big band charts have been performed by the University of North Texas lab bands, university jazz ensembles in Japan, Cornell University, Colorado State University, Denver University, Le Moyne College, University of California Chico, and Humber College in Toronto, Canada.

As an educator, Wil is in demand as both a saxophone and jazz clinician and joined the music faculty at Colorado State University as an adjunct Jazz Instructor in the fall of 2009. He is a frequent adjudicator for high school and college jazz festivals in the southwest and maintains a private saxophone/composition studio in the Denver area. Wil has served as an Adjunct Saxophone Teacher at Denver University, composition teacher for the Colorado Conservatory of the Jazz Arts, faculty at the Yellowstone Jazz Camp as well as the University of Northern Colorado Jazz Camp, and the Rocky Mountain Summer Music Camp.

Originally from Central Texas, Wil began studying music at age 5 and picked up the saxophone at age 9. He earned a B.M. in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas in 2001 where he played in, composed for, and recorded with the 1:00 Lab Band. In 2000 he attended the Henry Mancini Institute on a full scholarship from BMI and receieved a commission the following year from HMI for a piece premiered at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. In Sept 2001, Wil relocated to New York City, where he played with Toshiko Akiyoshi and Bill Warfield's NY Fusion Ensemble among others. During his time in New York, Wil studied saxophone with Dave Pietro and composition with Michael Abene and Jim McNeely as a member of the BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop. In 2003 he returned to his hometown of Austin, TX where he co-founded the 10-pc Chamber Jazz Ensemble and served as musical director for vocalist Kevin Ahart. Mr. Swindler has lived in Longmont, Colorado since March 2006 with his wife April Johannesen.