Fostina Dixon and Winds of Change

I am able to deliver an entertaining performance with my band, featuring my saxophone playing as well as vocals with a wide musical range stretching from Gospel to Jazz to Funk that appeals to a wide variety of audiences.

Instrumentalist, Vocalist, Composer, Arranger, Lyricist, Actress, & Teacher

Fostina Dixon is a composer, vocalist and jazz soloist who plays soprano, alto and baritone saxes; flute; and clarinet. Ms. Dixon has been guest soloist with Abbey Lincoln, Barry Harris, Earl May and the Big Apple Jazzwomen. She has also played with Gil Evans, Roy Ayers, Tom Browne, Charlie Persip, Melba Liston, Cab Calloway, Slide Hampton, Frank Foster, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Vinton, Sammy Davis, Jr., Prince, and Marvin Gaye, with whom she toured for four years. She was a member of the Gerald Wilson, Jimmy Cleveland and Leslie Drayton big bands.

Fostina Dixon is a native of Wilmington, Delaware where she studied with the late Robert "Boysie" Lowery. As a young woodwind insrumentalist she played for the Delaware All-State Band and was selected for the American Young Symphonic Orchestra which toured Europe. She went on to study with such great musicians as Frank Foster, Buddy Colltet, Vic Morosco, Joe Viola, Andy McGhee and William Bowie.

As a professional musician, she has performed at numerous clubs, colleges, libraries, churches, community art centers, New York's Jazzmobile concert series, theaters and toured abroad. Some of the festivals which her band "Winds of Change" has appeared at are New York's Annual Afrikan Street Carnival, the Annual New York Women's Jazz Festival, the Annual Black Women's History Conference, the Kool Jazz Festival, Greenwich Village Jazz Festival, and the Annual Jackie Robinson Festival in Norwalk, CT. She has also toured Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, France and the Netherlands several times.

Also, Ms. Dixon has worked with and made television appearances for shows such as the popular "NY Undercover Cop" series, WNYC Channel 31s "Perspective in Jazz," NBCs "Today in New York" with Dr. Billy Taylor and a special TV presentation "Salute to Bobby Vinton." Fostina's extensive career has carried her into theatrical performances of the Musical Theatre Works production of "All Girl Band" and Playwrights Horizon production of "Jazz is a Lady." She has performed at the Women's International Film Festival in New York City and "Sisterfire," a festival in celebration of women artists sponsored by the Flamboyant Ladies Theatre Company.

Fostina Dixon founded the Wilmington Youth Jazz Band in 2004. ((link hidden)), a non- profit organization for youths.

QUOTES:

American Women in Jazz said "she is a player

of impeccable control and skills with... highly

independent ideas...and as a composer she

is described by Dr. Antoinette Handy, in her

book Black Women in American Bands as

"a true original."