Frank Bongiorno is Professor of Saxophone and Jazz Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington since 1982. During this time at UNCW, his saxophone as well as jazz students have received national and international recognition by such organizations as Down Beat and Jazzfest USA, among others, and he has been recognized for his contributions to teaching at UNCW receiving the 2006 J. Marshall Crews Distinguished Faculty Award, the UNCW 2010 Distinguished Teaching Professorship Award, and the 2011 North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. As an active recitalist, orchestral soloist, jazz artist, and clinician throughout the United States and abroad, Bongiorno's performances have taken him to Berlin, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Tokyo, Nuremberg, Montreux (Switzerland), Graz and Salzburg (Austria), Valencia (Spain), Montréal, Pesaro (Italy), and Ljubljana (Slovenia). He has performed solos with various professional and college ensembles such as the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana (Italy), Shreveport Symphony, Wilmington Symphony Orchestra, Auburn University Wind Ensemble, Williams College Jazz Ensemble, and Northern State College Jazz Ensemble, among others. In addition to his solo career, Bongiorno was a member of the renowned Ryoanji Duo (saxophone & classical guitar). Other performing credits include performances as a supporting musician for the Four Tops, Carol Channing, Red Skelton, the North Carolina Symphony, Kenny Rogers, Frankie Vallie, Johnny Mathis, Steve Lawrence, and Edie Gorme, as well as for the movie soundtrack of Chasers. Bongiorno's solo compact disc recordings include the critically acclaimed Classic Saxophone, Classic Saxophone, Vol. 2: Musica da camera, and Images, as a member of the Ryoanji Duo. The duo also recorded David Kechley's Sea of Stones, a concerto for saxophone, guitar, and orchestra, with the Filharmonia Sudecka in Walbrzych, Poland, and was released with other orchestral works by Kechley. He has recorded a jazz play along CD of original jazz compositions as well as a master class CD on learning to improvise using transcriptions for Jazz Player Magazine, a saxophone vibrato master class CD, and two sets of play-along duets for saxophone published in the Saxophone Journal. His publications include classical saxophone transcriptions (Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5: Cantilena by Heitor Villa-Lobos), original compositions for jazz combo, paper presentations at the Eighteenth Annual International Association for Jazz Educators Conference and the Second Annual Boston Saxophone Workshop & Contemporary Woodwind Seminar, a DVD on Basic Reed Maintenance for the Saxophonist, as well as over 150 articles and reviews in such publications as the Saxophone Symposium, Saxophone Journal, North Carolina Music Educators Journal, the National Association of College Wind & Percussion Instructors and Popular Musicians. His new book, "Basic Concepts and Strategies for the Developing Saxophonist" will be released in the Spring of 2022. He has served as Membership Director, Treasurer and Coordinating Reviews Editor for the North American Saxophone Alliance and has been featured in a front cover interview of the January/February 1993 issue of the Saxophone Journal, as well as listed in the International Who's Who in Music, Seventeenth Edition, and the Outstanding Musicians of the 20th Century.
