Don Byron is a jazz performer and composer who primarily plays the clarinet. He has collaborated and performed with Mario Bauza, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Anthony Braxton, Medeski, Martin & Wood, and Joe Henry, among many others. Byron has served as the artistic director of jazz at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and been an artist-in-residence at New York's Symphony Space. He has written music for the dance companies of Donald Byrd, Mark Dendy, and Ellen Sinopoli. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artist Fellowship, and a Rome Prize for Composition. Byron attended the New England Conservatory of Music, studying with George Russell. He was a Pew Fellowships panelist in 2010.