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Biography

Born in Arizona in 1943, brought up in Southern California from 1950 - 64, Garret List came of age as an artist in New York City in the 1960s and 70s. He was a lead trombonist at the Juilliard School of Music, and concertized frequently as one of New York’s top freelance musicians. He soon became a leader in the growing new music world performing with the likes of John Cage and friends, the Juilliard Ensemble, Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Frederic Ryzewski, Karl Berger’s "Creative Music Studio", MEV in its NYC version.

Portfolio

In the wildly eclectic 70s atmosphere of downtown NYC, he performed and created with poets, dancers, painters, and composers while playing an astounding mix of music from classic and contemporary to blues, salsa and jazz. Those heady times of free improvised music allowed him to be the Artistic Director of the Kitchen, an incubator of creativity that still thrives today. Performing with some of the times’ most daring musical collectives, it was the A-1 Art Band (1975-80) that was his orchestra of this period.

In 1981, at Henri Pousseur’s (leader of the avant-garde music) request, he moved to Belgium to create the improvisation class at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Liège (Belgium) which he headed for over 30 years. And so, he dedicated his time to teach musical improvisation in a deeper and more rigorous way.

In Belgium for the last 30 years Garrett continues his creative explorations: in the theater with Max Parfondry and Jacques Delcuvellerie; as a performer creating different ensembles - "The Real Live Orchestra", "The Garrett List Ensemble", "The Collective du Lion", "The International Riffing Society", and more recently with Orchestra ViVo!; as a composer continuing with works such as the 24 composition suite "Music for Trees" (1986-89); "Au Coeur du monde" (text: Blaise Cendrars 1980-98); "La Cantate de Bissesero" (Rwanda 94 with Delcuvellerie and Mathias Simons 1998-2000), "État de Siège" (with Mahmoud Darwich 2002-05); "Bobby’s Liebeslied" (2010); "The Garrett List Songbook" with Johan Dupont (2012); "Souvenirs d’Amour" (2012) .

The creation of Orchestra ViVo! is the materialization of an ambitious, innovative and unifying project, coming straight from Garrett List’s experience : a man who is always searching for new ways to share his beliefs and gathering people and cultures together to work in harmony, thanks to his passion and knowledge of music. It’s a far reaching project of which List has always dreamed and which has finally become a reality.