Anna Webber (b. 1984) is a flutist, saxophonist, and composer whose interests and work live in the aesthetic overlap between avant-garde jazz and new classical music. Her music has been called „visionary and captivating,” (Wall Street Journal), and “heady music [that] appeals to the rest of the body” (NPR). In 2024 alone, she received the Herb Albert Award in the Arts, a Chamber Music America New Jazz Works commission, and was voted top of both the tenor saxophone and flute “Rising Star” categories in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll. She was additionally voted top of the Downbeat “Rising Star” arranger category in 2025.
A prolific bandleader, Webber is known for her group Simple Trio (with John Hollenbeck on drums and Matt Mitchell on piano), with which she’s worked since 2013 and has released 4 albums; the Webber Morris Big Band, a group she co-leads with saxophonist and composer Angela Morris; and her quintet Shimmer Wince (featuring Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Mariel Roberts on cello, Elias Stemeseder on synthesizer, and Lesley Mok on drums) which explores Just Intonation in a jazz context. She has additionally performed and/or recorded with projects led by artists such as Tomeka Reid, Miles Okazaki, Joe Morris, Yuhan Su, Dan Weiss, Roscoe Mitchell, Ranja Swaminathan, Jen Shyu, Dave Douglas, Matt Mitchell, Ches Smith, John Hollenbeck, and Trevor Dunn, among others.
Webber is a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow, and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. She has additionally been honored with the Margaret Whitton Award (administered by the Jazz Gallery); grants from the Copland Fund (2021 & 2019), the Shifting Foundation (2015 & 2022), the New York Foundation for the Arts (2017), the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts; and residencies from Exploring the Metropolis (2019), the MacDowell Colony (2017 & 2020), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2015), and the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (2014).
Originally from British Columbia, Canada, Webber studied music at McGill University in Montreal before moving to New York City in 2008. She holds master’s degrees from both Manhattan School of Music and the Jazz Institute Berlin. She is on faculty at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and The New School in New York.
