CELIA'S FAN PAGE
Jordan Zed sang for many years while in Elementary School with Saint John's Rotary Boys' Choir. In his last performance as a boy soprano, he sang Andrew Lloyd Weber's PIE JESU with another young musician. Overnight, he became a baritone. It clearly wasn't a "cold" which was responsible for forever changing the way he reached those lovely high soprano notes....
At 4 1/2 years of age, Jordan began taking keyboard (and rhythm) lessons at the Yamaha Piano Studio. Soon he was transposing keys and showing a real intuitive love of the piano. That joy continued throughout school and into university; it was evident in annual performances and awards at music festivals, a couple of summers at Tanglewood and one in Aspen, a silver medal at the Ludmilla Knezkova-Hussey International Piano Competition, performances in Toronto, Fredericton and at Saint John's Imperial Theatre. Jordan has a deep respect and admiration for all of his piano teachers, including 2 of the more recent - Dr. Herbert Stessin from Juilliard and Dr. Boris Lysenko (from Leningrad) currently teaching at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music.
He was 6 years old when he began composing for piano. Over the years he won some regional and provincial competitions, and placed second in a national competition. One of the pieces he wrote called ENIGMA for piano and choir was performed by the Rotary Boys Choir and Jordan at the Saint John High School Auditorium (Jordan's alma mater). Even then, his style was contemporary and strongly influenced by popular culture, as exemplified in his very first award winning composition HALLOWEEN. His early works included such pieces as JOURNEY INTO SPACE, JORDY'S JAZZ, INSPIRATION which became the title of his first solo recital performed at age 16.
Jordan studied and performed on the alto saxophone during his early teens, learning the art of improvisation with Saint John's "Jazz Connection", which undoubtedly heightened his interest in writing for other instruments in addition to the voice and piano. But it was only recently that he began writing and arranging all the other parts in his own songs. Last summer, he studied with Berklee graduate/drummer, Marc Cyr - the culmination of which resulted in his first mini-CD...
Jordan Zed is the Winner of the Jack Maher Award selected by Berklee's Professional Writing Division (for outstanding contributions in Songwriting, Arranging, Performance & Production).
He is also the winner of the STARTRACK 1999 songwriting competition.
And most recently, PLACED FIRST IN THE JOHN LENNON SCHOLARSHIP PROJECT, COORDINATED BY THE BMI FOUNDATION, CASH PRIZE $10,000