Dr. Timothy Crump is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator. His musical interests span an enormous breadth of genres and styles, performing in ensembles as varied as symphony orchestras and punk bands. 

 

He is an educator with 22 years of experience teaching saxophone, clarinet, flute, and jazz improvisation to students of all ages and skill levels. He has taught over 20,000 music lessons. For ten years, he maintained a private studio of over 60 students in the northern Atlanta suburbs. During that time, 10-15 students were annually placed in district honor and all-state bands. His students also placed in national competitions and received full scholarships to institutions such as the Berklee School of Music, the University of Michigan, and the Cincinnati Conservatory. While in Mississippi, Tim continued to maintain a smaller studio of online students, including adult amateurs and high school students, who continued to achieve high honors, including performances with the Georgia All-State Combined Orchestra and advancing to the semi-final round of the Junior Fischoff competition. Most important to Tim is the fact that they began lessons with him in their first year of playing. In his lessons, he prioritizes student-
centered teaching and growth and believes that high-level instruction should be available to all musicians regardless of their background or long-term goals.

 

Throughout his career, Tim has been an active freelance musician in the metro-Atlanta and Mississippi Pine Belt regions. In Atlanta, he performed with numerous corporate bands, playing countless weddings and private events at venues such as the Atlanta History Center and the Coca Cola headquarters. He has played in numerous blues venues across the city with legendary artists such as Lola Gulley, Sandra Hall, and Eddie Tigner. He has shared the stage with jazz and fusion musicians such as Lou Marini, Kebbi Williams, Kevin Scott, and Fred Wesley. As a woodwind doubler, he has contributed to the pit orchestra for many musical theater productions, including for productions of Newsies, The Color Purple, Something Rotten, Jersey Boys, Beauty and the Beast, Guys and Dolls, and Cabaret among many others. 

 

In addition to jazz and commercial music, Tim is an active classical saxophonist. He has performed in orchestras including the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, Meridian Symphony, Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Laurel Community Orchestra, and the Festival South Chamber Players, as well as new music ensembles Chamber Cartel and Smol Ensemble. He has premiered works by composers including Olivia Kieffer, Nicole Chamberlain, Marc Yates, Majid Araim, Nikitas Demos, and Logan Rutledge. As a member of the University of Southern Mississippi Saxophone Chamber Orchestra, he performed on the opening concert for the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial conference in 2022. 

 

Tim has been a member of various creative and genre-bending ensembles in the metro-Atlanta region, including the Clibber Jones Ensemble, a long-running chamber rock band that fused classical minimalism with progressive rock. He was a founding member of the Atlanta Improvisers’ Orchestra; an ensemble committed to collective free improvisation. He recorded the soundtrack to season two of the Adult Swim Show Tender Touches with A.I.O. in 2019. He also was a member of the trio “Everything is Dangerous,” along with tubist/bassist Bill Pritchard and percussionist Victor Pons. The ensemble performed completely improvised sets, with each musician using numerous laptops, pedals, and other such devices. He presented at the Percussive Arts Society International Conference (PASIC) with this ensemble in 2019.

Tim is also an active composer and arranger. His original compositions include works for solo flute and tuba with electronics, as well as chamber music. He also composes music for jazz and improvisational ensembles of all sizes, blending classical composition with jazz and free improvisation and electronic music. He has arranged numerous standard classical works for saxophone, combining his interest in composition and arranging with his passion for pedagogy. He is currently completing a transcription of the early string quartets of Franz Jospeh Haydn for saxophone quartet.

Apart from his performing and composing activities, Tim is a passionate about research,
focusing on saxophone history and early 20th century American popular music. His doctoral work focused on performance practice of the music of Rudy Wiedoeft, including presenting his works on the c-melody saxophone, the instrument of choice for the composer. He is currently expanding upon this work by investigating the c-melody saxophone more broadly with the objective of creating an authoritative work for those interested in exploring this instrument. He owns a growing collection of historic saxophones which he utilizes in performance and teaching.

Tim holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in saxophone performance from the University of Southern Mississippi and a Bachelor of Science from Lee University. His primary classical saxophone teachers were Dannel Espinoza, Alan Theisen, and Brenda Moye. He has studied jazz saxophone and improvisation with Larry Panella, Alan Wyatt, Mace Hibbard, and Paula Archer Wyatt. He has studied clarinet with Jeff Brooks and Tim Fitzgerald-Boyd and flute with John Carruth and Sarah Ambrose as well as composition with John Wykoff. He gained additional valuable experience from coaching and masterclass performances for Eric Alexander, Carl Allen, David Sanchez, Matt Otto, Mike Holober, Jan Berry Baker, Ellery Eseklin, Cristine Rall, and Adam Larson.