Composer/performer Karlton Hester's work is often ecumenical and interdisciplinary. He integrates Global African music with various elements of music from other regions of the world in premeditated and spontaneous compositions, electro-acoustic composition, and other interdisciplinary collaboration projects.
Karlton E. Hester, Ph.D. (composer/flutist/saxophonist), began his career as a composer and recording artist in Los Angeles where he worked as a studio musician and music educator. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is currently Director of "Jazz" Studies and Director of DANM at the University of California in Santa Cruz. As a performer on flute, synthesizers, and saxophone, he is the founding music director of the Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band in San Francisco and his experimental ensemble Hesterian Musicism. He served as the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at Cornell University from 1991-2001. Hester specializes in premeditated, spontaneous, and electro-acoustic composition. His compositions span a wide range; from numerous solo cycles for various woodwinds to chamber configurations, music videos, and electro-acoustic symphonic works written in an eclectic array of styles. He has been the recipient of composer fellowships, grants, and commissions from the National Endowment of the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New England Council of the Arts, the U.S, State Department's Arts International, ASCAP, the William Grant Still Foundation, a Postdoctoral fellowship from the Mellon Foundation, amongst others.
Hesterian Musicism, is a name and concept that he coined initially for an LP album of the same name released in 1982 (Label: Hesteria 00002). “Hester’s music involves a synthesis of Afrocentric and Western trans-tonal and electronic elements into an expressive voice that defies simple categorization as either premeditated or spontaneous composition.” [His CD albums and DVDs include 21st-Century Musicism; The Divine Particle Vision, The Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band (featuring John Handy and Denise Perrier); Harmonious Soul Scenes 2000; Musicism for the Sake of Love; Hesterian Liberation; Reconstructive Musicism; Karlton Hester and the Contemporary Jazz Art Movement; Hesterian Musicism; Dances Purely for the Sake of Love; Musicism for Your Imagination, Sacred Musicism, Transcultural Musicism, Quantum Elders Ballet, and others. [ Karlton Hester Profile, UC Santa Cruz Arts.] Some of his CD albums and DVDs include 21st-Century Musicism; The Divine Particle Vision, The Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band (featuring John Handy and Denise Perrier); Harmonious Soul Scenes 2000; Musicism for the Sake of Love; Hesterian Liberation; Reconstructive Musicism; Karlton Hester and the Contemporary Jazz Art Movement; Hesterian Musicism; Dances Purely for the Sake of Love; Musicism for Your Imagination, Sacred Musicism, Transcultural Musicism, Quantum Elders Ballet, and others.