Sam Spear Music

Sam Spear is a jazz woodwind instrumentalist and composer based in Boston, MA. She is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, double majoring in Performance and Jazz Composition. At Berklee, Spear was awarded a Presidential Scholarship (2015-2019), the Jazz Composition Achievement Award (2017), the Woodwind Department Achievement Award (2019), and the Toshiko Akiyoshi Award (2019). This fall, she will be begin her masters studies in Jazz Performance at New England Conservatory.

Spear performs on alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet, and flute. She has played with John Hollenbeck, Ayn Inserto, Greg Hopkins, Andy Milne, and Samuel Torres, to name a few. She was a member of the prestigious Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra.

As a composer, Spear's ensemble of choice is jazz orchestra. She recently premiered four new works with her own orchestra, including a four-movement suite and an extended composition.

During time at Berklee, Spear studied saxophone with Shannon LeClaire, Jim Odgren, and George Garzone. She has studied composition with Ayn Inserto, Greg Hopkins, and Bob Pilkington.

Spear has also been a rising voice for gender equality in the jazz community. Her advocacy work has been featured in Downbeat Magazine's February 2019 issue and in a news story on Boston's local NPR station, WBUR. Spear co-founded Women in Jazz Collective, a student-run organization at Berklee College of Music with the mission of empower female and non-binary jazz musicians.

I enjoy being able to help students grow as people. Learning music is about a lot more than playing notes on a page. It requires organization, study, dedication, communication, creativity, and many other important life skills.