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Dr. Anthony Branker is an American musician and educator of Caribbean descent whose work as a composer, educator, scholar, conductor, and performer has been featured on the international stage in Brazil, Switzerland, Poland, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Denmark, Greece, China, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Russia, Lithuania, and Japan as well as throughout the United States. Branker was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and raised in Piscataway and Plainfield, New Jersey. He attended public schools in Piscataway and graduated from Piscataway High School where he was involved in the music program under the direction of R. Bruce Bradshaw and Joseph T. Mundi. Following high school, Branker attended Princeton University where he received his B.A. in Music and a Certificate in African American Studies. His graduate studies took him to the University of Miami for a Master of Music in Jazz Pedagogy and later to Columbia University, Teachers College where he received the degrees of Master of Education and Doctor of Education; both with specialties in Music and Music Education. Family background Branker’s family hails from Trinidad and Barbados and he is a first-generation American. He comes from a musical extended family that includes his uncle Rupert Branker who was the music director and pianist with The Platters. Another uncle, pianist Roy Branker was a member of the Copasetics, a fraternity of male musicians in Harlem organized after the death of William “Bojangles” Robinson, primarily to support dance. Roy composed music with Billy Strayhorn, another member of the Copasetics, and was mentioned in Duke Ellington's autobiography, “Music is My Mistress.” Roy Branker was also a member of a trio called The Three Peppers. Anthony Branker’s cousin, Nicholas Brancker, who spells his last name slightly different, is from Barbados. He’s a music producer and bassist who has worked with Roberta Flack, Cyndi Lauper, Simply Red, Shabba Ranks and Lord Mouse and the Kalypso Katz. Nicholas was also nominated for a Grammy Award for a jazz piece on flutist Sherry Winston's album “Love Is.” Educator Dr. Anthony Branker has joined the jazz studies faculty at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University as an adjunct professor where his responsibilities include two graduate seminars in Jazz Historiography (I & II), a graduate course in Advanced Composing & Arranging, and a Jazz Theory course for undergraduates. Dr. Branker previously served as a visiting conductor at Rutgers where he directed the University Jazz Ensemble I, which, at the time, included graduate students Rudy Royston, Jaimeo Brown, David Miller, and James Borowski. In 2016, Dr. Branker retired from Princeton University where he was a member of the faculty for 27 years, held an endowed chair in jazz studies, and served as founding director of the Program in Jazz Studies, director of the university jazz ensembles program, and was associate director of the Program in Musical Performance. While at Princeton, he directed an extensive list of ensembles and taught courses in jazz theory through improvisation & composition, jazz performance practice in historical and cultural context, jazz composition, the evolution of jazz styles, and the improvising ensemble. Dr. Branker has served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn, Estonia, and has been a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, Rutgers University/Mason Gross School of the Arts, Hunter College of the City University of New York, Ursinus College, The Hill School, and the New Jersey Summer Arts Institute. In addition, Dr. Branker was visiting composer at the Southern Danish Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Esbjerg, Denmark; Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, Germany; Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre; and for “Crossing Borders” – the Socrates/Erasmus Intensive Programme in cooperation with the European Union, the Association of Baltic Academies of Music, and the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre. Composer The music of composer Anthony Branker stands firmly on jazz traditions while simultaneously pushing the boundaries in bold and beautiful new directions. Recently, his 2016 Beauty Within recording was the winner of 3 Gold Medal Awards from Global Music Awards in the categories of “Album” (Beauty Within), “Group” (Anthony Branker & Imagine), and “Genre” (Eclectic Jazz Fusion). Past Global Music Award Gold Medalists in jazz have included Esperanza Spalding, Omar Sosa, Melissa Aldana, and John Daversa. In 2014 & 2015, Branker was named in Down Beat magazine’s 62nd & 63rd Annual International Critics Poll as a “Rising Star Composer.” Branker has recorded for Origin Records and Sons of Sound Records and has eight releases in his fast growing and musically rich discography. They include: Beauty Within (Origin, 2016), The Forward (Towards Equality) Suite (Origin, 2014), Uppity (Origin, 2013), Together (Origin, 2012), Dialogic (Origin, 2011), Dance Music (Origin, 2010), Blessings (Origin, 2009), and Spirit Songs (Sons of Sound, 2006). Dr. Branker leads three jazz collectives for his recording projects that include Imagine, Word Play and Ascent, which have featured Ralph Bowen, Fabian Almazan, Linda Oh, Rudy Royston, Pete McCann, David Binney, Mark Gross, Tia Fuller, Steve Wilson, Antonio Hart, Conrad Herwig, Clifford Adams, Andy Hunter, Eli Asher, Jonny King, Jim Ridl, Bryan Carrott, Kenny Davis, John Benitez, Belden Bullock, Donald Edwards, Adam Cruz, Ralph Peterson Jr., Wilby Fletcher, Renato Thoms, Kadri Voorand, Alison Crockett, and Freddie Bryant. Conductor As a conductor, Dr. Branker has worked with such artists as Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, Jon Faddis, Ted Curson, Oliver Lake, Frank Foster, Benny Carter, Conrad Herwig, Stanley Jordan, Ralph Bowen, Bobby Watson, Steve Nelson, Bob Mintzer, Don Braden, Ralph Peterson Jr., Orrin Evans, Bryan Carrott, Mark Gross, Antonio Hart, Freddie Hendrix, Jonny King, Clifford Adams, Jacky Terrasson, Benny Powell, Michael Philip Mossman, Jim Ridl, Rick Margitza, Jeffery Smith, Walt Weiskopf, Valery Ponomarev, Guilherme Franco, Renato Thoms, Alison Crockett, Marc Bernstein, Winston Byrd, and Patience Higgins. Dr. Branker has also conducted trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s Grammy Award-Winning score for “A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina)” featuring Blanchard and His Quintet along with tenor saxophonist Brice Winston, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Joshua Crumbly, drummer Kendrick Scott, and members of the Princeton University and Rutgers University orchestras. Scholarly work Dr. Branker’s work as a scholar has been shared at conferences and/or published by the International Society for Music Education, International Society for Improvised Music (ISIM), Research in Music Education (RIME), International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education (ISAME), College Music Society (CMS), International Jazz Composers Symposium (IJCS), International Association for Jazz Education, Foundation for Educational Administration (FEA) / New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association (NJPSA) School Leadership Conference, New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA), the Princeton University Regional Conference – “Big Ideas: Science, Innovation, and Discovery,” and Down Beat magazine. Dr. Branker was recently named to the College Music Society’s (CMS) Advisory Council on Improvisation and has served as program scholar for Looking At: Jazz, America’s Art Form, a six-part documentary film viewing and discussion series at the Princeton Public Library in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the American Library Association. Performer As a trumpeter, Branker performed and recorded with the Spirit of Life Ensemble – including a five-year residency at New York’s internationally renowned Sweet Basil Jazz Club. He also appeared at the Pori International Jazz Festival (Finland); Leningrad/St. Petersburg International Jazz Festival (Russia); Kaunas International Jazz Festival (Lithuania); Estonia International Jazz Festival (Tartu, Estonia); JVC Jazz Festival at Sweet Basil (New York); Panasonic Village Jazz Festival (New York); as well as jazz club performances in France, Finland, Germany, Russia, and New York. In addition, he has shared the stage in a variety of musical settings with such artists as Ted Curson, Talib Kibwe, Guilherme Franco & Nova Bossa Nova, Steve Nelson, Marcus Belgrave, Billy Higgins, John Hicks, Michael Cochrane, Calvin Hill, Eddie Henderson, James Weidman, Stanley Jordan, Benny Carter, Ralph Peterson, Terence Blanchard, Big John Patton, Roscoe Mitchell, Gary Burton, the R&B group Tavares, and has performed in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway production of Dinah Was: The Dinah Washington Musical. In 1999, medical problems stemming from two brain aneurysms and the discovery of an AVM (arteriovenous malformation) led him to yield his trumpet playing and forced him to take a leave of absence from teaching. Selected discography
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