User:Samouraikatagi/sandbox/Samuel Blais - Musician, Composer, Teacher

Samuel Blais, Musician, Composer, teacher.

Samuel Blais is a Montreal based saxophonist, composer and teacher. He started studying music around age 7 and began playing saxophone around 9 years old. He won his first classical music competition at age 14(Concours de l'ARAM, Repentigny, Quebec, Canada) and won many other in the following years(Festival des Harmonies du Québec, Canada Music Competition, etc.) He started studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal at age 16. After completing a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Performance at McGill University, he relocated to New York for 3 years to complete a Master's Degree at Manhattan School of Music and to spend an extra year playing and performing in the big apple.

He has 3 albums as a leader, one of which called "Cycling" features saxophonist Dave Liebman. You can find a review of the recording here: http://gapplegatemusicreview.blogspot.ca/2015/06/samuel-blais-david-liebman-cycling.html

His second record, "New Angle", has won the award for Best Jazz Record in Quebec(Canada) and the Opus Prize in 2011. Blais was also awarded the CBC/Radio-Canada Jazz revelation for 2011/2012.

Has a teacher, Samuel Blais has given Masterclasses at University of Montreal, University of Sherbrooke and Université Laval. He is the classical and jazz saxophone teacher at Cegep de Joliette since 2013.

Samuel Blais has had the chance to perform in Canada, U.S.A., China, France, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Belgium, Germany and many more. He has performed and/or recorded with such artists as David Liebman,Donny McCaslin, David Binney, Larry Grenadier, Greg Osby, Nate Smith, Jim Black, Phil Woods, Rufus Reid, Ari Hoenig, etc.