Biography
For the past decade Amy Griffiths has made countless appearances as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist and her performances have been broadcast by NPR affiliates throughout the United States. She will be featured as a soloist with the CSU Wind Ensemble, conducted by Dr. Jamie Nix in a performance of the Dahl Concerto at the College Band Directors National Association/National Band Association Southern Division Conference in February 2012. She is a founding member of the Fountain City Ensemble, an unusual and versatile chamber group with whom she has toured the United States and Japan. She appeared with the Fountain City Ensemble at the American Musicological Society's annual conference in Indianapolis in November 2010 and will perform again with the FCE at the International Clarinet Association conference in Los Angeles in August 2011. In November 2011 she and the FCE will serve as artists-in-residence at the Aries Composers Festival at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins Colorado.
Apart from her performance schedule with the FCE, Griffiths is involved in various other chamber music collaborations including a concert tour in 2010-2011 with pianist Yien Wang and soprano Michelle DeBruyn, with whom she performed at the 2010 Women in Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She has performed with many professional orchestras including the Phoenix Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Charleston Symphony, the Newt Hinton Ensemble, and the Atlanta Opera.
As a jazz musician, Griffiths plays in a jazz quartet with her Schwob School of Music jazz faculty colleagues (bassist Alex Pershounin and drummer Paul Vaillancourt) and various guests including guitarists Robert Orr and Trey Wright and pianist Tyrone Jackson. She has performed with the Louisiana State University jazz faculty on the Hot Summer Nights jazz series in Baton Rouge, LA. She has been a featured soloist with the Maebashi Big Band in Japan, the Columbus State University Jazz Ensemble. and she frequently appears in bands in the Atlanta area including the David Brothers Super Big Band, the Georgia Symphony Orchestra Jazz Ensemble, and the Drive-By Big Band. She has extensive experience performing Latin music and has been a member of several salsa bands, including the Orquesta Panamericana of Phoenix, Arizona. While in Phoenix she also was a founding member of the Dixie Devils, a group specializing in early New Orleans-style jazz. Since moving to Georgia she has played in several soul bands, including Saints and Sinners and Maxwell Lummus.
Griffiths is featured as a soloist on several works with the CSU Percussion Ensemble on the group's upcoming CD to be released in 2012. She has premiered numerous new works for saxophone in various settings, including Canadian composer Brian Cherney's work for solo saxophone, The Return of Ulysses and American composer J.M. David's Found Objects written for the Fountain City Ensemble. Premieres in the near future include works by composers such as Eric Mandat, Elainie Lillios, Galen Brown, Donnacha Dennehy, and Pulitzer Prize nominee Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.
Griffiths is a member of several professional organizations such as the North American Saxophone Alliance, serving as host of the 2009 Region VI conference and performing at various biennial and regional conferences throughout the United States. She has also performed at the 14th World Saxophone Congress in Ljubljana, Slovenia, giving the European premiere with clarinetist Lisa Oberlander of Gregory Wanamaker's Duo Sonata for clarinet and saxophone. She has served on the board of the Columbus Jazz Society and is a regularly featured soloist on that performance series.
Originally from Brunswick, Maryland, Amy Griffiths earned a high school diploma and a Bachelor of Music degree in Saxophone Performance from the North Carolina School of the Arts where she was a student of renowned tenor saxophone soloist James Houlik. She spent the next two years living in and around Paris, France where she studied privately with international recording artists and world-class pedagogues Claude Delangle, Professor of Saxophone at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and Jean-Yves Fourmeau, Professor of Saxophone at the Conservatoire Régional de Poissy. Upon her return to the United States, she completed the Master of Music degree in Saxophone Performance and Pedagogy at Arizona State University, where she was a graduate teaching assistant of saxophonist Joseph Wytko. Aside from her studies within the saxophone studio at ASU, she also learned a great deal about jazz and musicianship from tuba virtuoso and early jazz aficionado Sam Pilafian.
After completing the MM in 1997 she moved to Georgia. Since that time she has served on several music faculties including Darton College, Andrew College, the Georgia Governor's Honors Program, and Columbus State University, where she has taught since 2000. In 2010 she earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Saxophone Performance from Louisiana State University where she was a graduate teaching assistant of acclaimed performer and teacher Griffin Campbell. Her doctoral studies at LSU involved a minor in Jazz Studies with jazz faculty Bill Grimes and Willis Delony, whose mastery in both the classical and jazz idioms has served as a model for Griffiths' own goals as a performer.
Dr. Griffiths is the saxophone professor at Columbus State University' Schwob School of Music in Columbus, Georgia where she maintains a dynamic saxophone studio and teaches saxophone chamber music, pedagogy, and repertoire along with various jazz courses. Her students regularly participate in solo and chamber music competitions and attend summer events such as the Brevard Summer Music Festival. She has presented recitals, clinics, and masterclasses at universities and colleges throughout the United States and abroad. She is on the faculty of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival where she will revive the saxophone program in the summer of 2012.
Dr. Griffiths is also the artistic director and founder of the 1st International Saxophone Symposium And Competition (ISSAC) to be held in the Schwob School of Music on October 25-28, 2012. Along with the competition itself, this event will feature a recital and a masterclass by saxophonist Claude Delangle, as well as numerous other masterclasses by various artists.
Amy Griffiths is a Conn-Selmer Artist and she performs on Selmer of Paris saxophones. She prefers the DeJacques Saxophone Strap and endorses that neckstrap exclusively.
