Home > Artists, Educators, & Ensembles > Jimmy Bowland

Jimmy Bowland

Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University

Quick Facts:

Nationality: USA
Artist Since:2013
Influences:My parents | Dr. Gerald Welker: my private sax teacher/ensemble conductor | Dick Aven: musician/artist
Mac or PC:Mac
Favorite Food:Fine
Favorite Drink:Fine
Favorite Car:My dad’s Ferrari
Favorite Book:Illusions by Richard Bach
Favorite Movie:To KIll A MockingBird
Favorite TV Show:Seinfeld
Favorite Composition:String Quartet #1 by Gyorgy Ligeti
Favorite Arrangement:Anything by Chris McDonald
Favorite Musical:Book of Mormon
Favorite Music Clinician:Rich Matteson
Favorite Performance Venue:Schermerhorn Symphony Hall
Favorite Hobby:Hiking
Favorite Cartoon Character:Pink Panther!

Banded Story:

When I was fifteen years old I began to realize that playing and even practicing the saxophone was becoming very important to me. As I the practicing began having a positive impact on my abilities to express myself through the horn, I began to really see the connection between the discipline and the immense freedom I felt from it. I began to get hooked!

The real epiphany or “goose-bump” moment came in the twelfth grade. I was practicing and memorizing a concerto in my room in front of a mirror and had my eyes closed. I was for the first time completely focused on the music that was coming out of the horn, the technique involved, the tone etc.

I was lost in it but at the same time more aware and focused than I had ever been. I finished playing, opened my eyes and was actually frightened to see a person holding a saxophone in the mirror! The music had taken me so far from the physical that it was shocking to see that metal thing in my hands.

That’s when I knew. I was completely hooked.

The rest of my life has been a quest to recreate that experience and share it with others.

Bio:


Jimmy Bowland is a freelance woodwind doubler proficient on saxophones, flute, piccolo and clarinets. He has made Nashville TN his home for the last twenty five years where he has been able to enjoy the full diversity Music City has to offer. He performs regularly with the Nashville Symphony on both classical and pops series concerts, tours nationally and internationally with artists such as Brenda Lee, Jamey Johnson, The Mavericks, Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams and many others.

Jimmy also has enjoyed a busy studio career playing on countless projects including major video game releases and artists such as Cat Stevens, Rascal Flatts, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks and CeCe Winans. 

Mr. Bowland has also had an active career as an educator/clinician. He has taught privately for over twenty years, was on faculty at Tennessee State University for eleven years and has conducted clinics in the Nashville area and internationally in Costa Rica and China.