Eli Bennett

At age 22, award-winning tenor saxophonist, composer, and Rico Reeds Artist Eli Bennett, is quickly becoming one of the most compelling young voices on the Canadian jazz scene. Bennett has been awarded over twenty-five prestigious national and international awards, including the Oscar Peterson Grant for Jazz Performance from the Hnatyshyn Foundation (Canada's former Governor General), the CBC Galaxie Rising Star Award from the National Jazz Awards, the 2011 Fred Sheratt Award (CARAS), and was the first Canadian to win the International Yamaha Young Performing Artists Award for best saxophonist under 21 in 2008. Bennett has also performed concerts with notable jazz artists Oscar Peterson, Hank Jones, James Moody, Dave Holland, and Terence Blanchard, and was selected to perform at the Grammy Awards for two consecutive years with the Gibson/Baldwin Grammy Jazz Ensemble. In collaboration with the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Bennett was awarded the International Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Fellowship in 2008, which featured six rising stars from North America and performed in Miami and Toronto.