Miguel Zenón

Miguel Zenón is a Puerto Rican alto saxophonist, composer, band leader, music producer, and educator. He is a multiple Grammy Award nominee, and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate Degree in the Arts from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón has built a distinguished career as a leader, releasing sixteen albums under his own name. In addition, he has toured and/or recorded with artists such as The SFJAZZ Collective, Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, David Sánchez, Danilo Perez, The Village Vanguard Orchestra, Kurt Elling, Joey Calderazzo, The Mingus Big Band and Bobby Hutcherson.

As a composer, he has been commissioned by SFJAZZ, NYO Jazz, The New York State Council for the Arts, Chamber Music America, Logan Center for The Arts, Miller Theater, The Hyde Park Jazz Festival, The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, MIT, Spektral Quartet, The Hewlett Foundation, Peak Performances, PRISM Quartet and many of his peers. He topped both the Jazz Artist of the Year and Alto Saxophonist of the Year categories in the 2014 JazzTimes Critics Poll and was selected as Alto Saxophonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (when he was also recognized as Arranger of the Year). In 2023 he was recognized by the same organization as the Composer of the Year.

Zenón has given hundreds of lectures and master classes and has taught all over the world, and is currently a faculty member in the Music & Theater Arts Department at MIT, as well as the current Visiting Scholar for the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department at Berklee College of Music. In 2011 he founded Caravana Cultural, an initiative that organizes free-of-charge Jazz Concerts in the rural areas of Puerto Rico.