Joan Hutton is an educator, performer and composer residing in Minneapolis, Minn., and originally hailing from Toronto, Canada. She has been a member of the Ancia Saxophone Quartet since 1996. She plays tenor and alto saxophones, and bass clarinet, with the jazz-funk sextet Rare Medium, and composes many of their tunes. Her newest group, the Joan Hutton Jazz Project, was formed early in 2017 to feature her original compositions. Other performance activities over the years have included solo recitals, pit orchestra work at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres and other various theaters, orchestral playing, big band and small jazz combos and R&B/rock/blues bands.
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.