Joan Hutton is a woodwind performer, composer and music educator residing in Minneapolis and hailing from Toronto, Canada. Her varied musical interests have led her over the years to classical, jazz, funk, free improvisation, pit orchestras and more. She is a long time member of the Ancia Saxophone Quartet and has recorded two albums and performed around the country as well as internationally with the group. She leads her own jazz groups, including the Joan Hutton Jazz Project and Take That Back, which feature many of her original compositions. Her album “Take That Back”, co-led with saxophonist Sue Orfield, was released in January 2022 on the Shifting Paradigm Records label.
Joan received her degrees from the Eastman School of Music (M.M.) and Ithaca College (B.M.). In addition to teaching at Augsburg, Joan has a large studio of private sax and clarinet students. In her teaching, she encourages students to explore as broad a range of styles as desired while developing a solid foundation on the saxophone through the study of standard repertoire, etudes and scales