BIO

Edward Petersen is the Associate Chair of the Department of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at the University of New Orleans. He is a featured saxophone soloist and arranger with Dee Dee Bridgewater and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO). He has performed at major festivals and concert halls in the United States (Rose Hall-Lincoln Center, Newport Jazz Festival, and many other venues), France (Jazz a’Vienne, L’Olympia), Switzerland (Festival Ete, Jazz Ascona), Finland (Pori Jazz Festival), Norway (Molde Jazz Festival), Hungary (Jazz Veszprem Festival), Canada (Saskatoon Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival), Netherlands (North Sea Jazz Festival), Australia (Sydney Recital Hall, Melbourne Jazz Festival), South Africa (Capetown Jazz Festival), and New Zealand (Wellington Jazz Festival) .

He has written many compositions and arrangements for NOJO-including two arrangements on the recently released Sony Music-Okeh CD, Dee Dee’s Feathers. He is a featured soloist on NOJO’s Grammy Award-winning CD, Book One. He has played with J.J. Johnson, Johnny Griffin, Clifford Jordan, Wilbur Campbell, Jay McShann, Lionel Hampton, Henry Butler, Herlin Riley, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Ira Sullivan, Eddie Harris, David Liebman, Ellis Marsalis, Ernie Watts and many others. He has recorded with Kurt Elling, Dr. John, Ron Carter, Cedar Walton, Laurence Hobgood, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Willie Pickens, Von Freeman, Brian Seeger, Fareed Haque, Jason Marsalis, Ramsey Lewis, Frank Mantooth, Johnny Adams, Ruth Brown, Chet Baker, and many others. His playing and musical compositions are featured on numerous other recordings, including three Grammy- nominated Blue Note CD’s by Kurt Elling, Close Your Eyes, The Messenger, and Live in Chicago and several releases under his own name on the Delmark label, Upward Spiral, The Haint, and Von and Ed, which also features the legendary Chicago saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master, Von Freeman. He recently released a CD on his own label entitled The Mission. He has received numerous commissions from the New Orleans Jazz Institute for original compositions and for the creation of jazz adaptations and arrangements of other music, ranging from opera to pop. He received a Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship in Music Performance and has received numerous Special Composers’ Awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).