Horace Alexander Young

Horace Alexander Young (born November 4, 1954) is an American saxophonist, flutist, composer, songwriter, composer, arranger/orchestrator and author. He has performed alongside acts such as B.B. King, Bill Withers, Freddy Fender, Jonathan Butler, The Manhattans, McCoy Tyner, Nancy Wilson, Norman Brown, Regina Belle, Sam Hopkins, Gerald Alston, Abdullah Ibrahim, The McCoy Tyner Big Band, and Toots Thielemans.

Young is also an educator, having taught on the music faculty of Washington State University (1998-2008 and 2015-2022), and at other educational institutions such as Sonoma State University (1983–84) and Rutgers University (1984–85), Texas Southern University (2008-2014) and Houston Community College (2010-2014 and 2022 - ). Additionally, he served as the Chair of the Contemporary Music Program at Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD) from 2014-2017 – where he established the student-run record label, ARROYO RECORDS which released two recordings during his tenure there. Young is now Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington State University.

Biography Early years and education Young is a native of Houston, Texas. He started taking music lessons at eight years of age, initially on the piano, but he subsequently took up the flute, clarinet, and saxophone. These early studies as a woodwind player were with Hal Tennyson (formerly of The Glenn Miller Orchestra) and with his junior high school Band Director, Edmund Broussard (formerly of The Count Basie Band). While his goal was to become a journalist and author, he saw music as a “serious hobby”. He played his first paying “gigs” at age 13 and was active in a few “garage bands throughout his junior and senior high school years.

In addition to his early private studies, he studied (flute and saxophone) at the university levels and through private mentoring with – Campbell “Skeets” Tolbert, Aaron Horne, and Robert Austin (at Texas Southern); Albert Tipton (Rice University); Frances Risdon, Richard Shanklin and Gregory W. Yasinitsky (at Washington State University) and private instruction with Laura Hunter and Eddie Daniels.

Young earned his BM degree in Music from Texas Southern University in Houston, while a member of the Ocean of Soul, graduating in 1978, and he later pursued an MA in Music at Washington State University (Pullman, Washington), which he completed in 1983. Prior to attending Washington State, he studied for two years at The Shepherd School of Music/Rice University (Houston, Texas), with a focus on Flute Performance and Composition. Young appeared in the 2005 documentary film Abdullah Ibrahim: A Struggle for Love, directed by Ciro Cappellari.

Recordings Young has performed on recordings for several musicians, among them Bubbha Thomas, Freddy Fender, B.B. King, Madd Hatta, Abdullah Ibrahim, Regina Belle, Mark Ledford, Texas Johnny Brown and Youssou N'Dour.