Alan Laurillard

Alan Laurillard (born April 20, 1946) is a Canadian composer, workshop leader, saxophonist, keyboard player and sample artist, living in the Netherlands and Bulgaria. He plays jazz, improvisational music and non-Western music. For his work as a musician, orchestral and workshop leader, and driver of the jazz scene in Groningen, Laurillard received the Boy Edgar Prize in 1982, the most important jazz award in The Netherlands, and four years later received the Henri de Wolf Jazz Prize. Youth, education and early career in Canada From 1955 to 1963 Laurillard was a member of the North Vancouver School Orchestra, which won the Canadian championship for school orchestras in 1960. During this period, he studied music theory and composition with Gordon Webster. Besides the tenor saxophone Laurillard also studied the piano and percussion. Between 1959 and 1972 he worked as a semi-professional saxophonist and arranger for various rock and roll and rhythm and blues groups and big bands in Vancouver. The soul group the Accents (1962–1967) was the most prominent of them. At the University of British Columbia, he completed his studies in mechanical engineering, but did not pursue a career in tha