Saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of music composition.
Established in 1925, the Fellowship is intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. This year’s slate of 178 honorees and beneficiaries, drawn from U.S. and Canadian citizens active in the humanities, sciences and arts, were named on April 6.
While the Guggenheim Foundation has previously conferred its prestigious annual Fellowships on an average of three jazz artists per year, Shorter is the only one to receive the honor in 2016. Previous recipients of the Fellowship include Rudresh Mahanthappa, Wadada Leo Smith, Paquito D’Rivera, Randy Weston.
An NEA Master, co-founder of Weather Report and veteran of Miles Davis’ great 1960’s quintet, today Shorter leads leads an improvising quartet comprising pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade. Their most recent record, Without a Net, was released in 2013.