Artem Badenko was born on January 5th 1998 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Began his musical studies at Jazz Music School named after Kim Nazaretov at the age of 4 as a piano player in his hometown of Rostov-on-Don, Russia. At the age of 6 he started to attend solfege, harmony, music history, rhythmic, block flute and vocal classes. At age 10 Artem played alto saxophone for the first time and in one year was playing in a famous Children Jazz Big Band named after Kim Nazareth on baritone saxophone conducted by Andrey Machnev. 

     When Artem was 13 years old he started to play tenor saxophone and fell in love with this instrument while he was also learning how to play drums, bass guitar and bass clarinet. At the age of 15 he performed his big band arrangement with the East West European Jazz Orchestra in Germany. The same year Artem met John Daversa and got to play a few gigs with him in Russia. 

     Artem is founder of the Mirror Reality Jazz Quartet, a band put together in his hometown. The very first time they played together was summer 2014. The idea was to play jazz on the streets and get some tips for it. But Artem started to bring his own music into the quartet’s repertoire and in October 2014 they already recorded their first album “Reflection”. Artem was 16 years old, when the drummer Ilya was just 14. The piano player Mekhak and his girlfriend Yana on bass were college students already. But right after the recording of the album they got married and stopped playing in Mirror Reality. That fact made Artem and Ilya start playing with their old friends from music school – 15 years old Mike on bass and 17 years old Vlad on piano. All together they attended a great workshop week in Russia in May 2015 with Alex Sipiagin, Donald Edwards, Boris Kozlov, Dave Pietro, JD Walter and Misha Tsiganov. They had multiple classes with all of them during one week every day. In the end of the week Mirror Reality played 3 tunes on the final concert with Alex, Donald and Misha sitting in. In one month after the workshop Mirror Reality Jazz Quartet recorded their second album “Catharsis”.

     In August 2015 Artem moved to the Netherlands to study in Prince Clause Conservatory where he got Full Tuition Scholarship. That’s where he started to call himself Art Baden, because people could remember it better. There he met and even got to play on gigs and jam sessions with Joe Locke, Adam Nussbaum, Don Braden, Matt Wilson, Orrin Evans, Joris Teepe, and Todd Coolman. 

     Joe Locke had a big influence on Art and helped him make the decision to apply for Berklee College of Music and stop studying in The Netherlands after one year of education. The summer before coming to Berklee, Artem had a tour with students from the Netherlands in Spain and gig at Langnau Jazz Nights in Switzerland with the Mirror Reality Jazz Quartet. 

     Art was awarded the Full Tuition Scholarship at Berklee and currently studying there on Performance Major. Recently Art has been working on projetcs with Domi Degalle, Jesus Molina, Joe Locke, and NC Music Label.   

​

     “I would say out of all students during my teaching, no one has had the most desperate desire in pursuing a career in performing as a jazz saxophonist. Art Baden is strong and intelligent person with a great knowledge of his instrument”                                                                                                                                                           -Frank Tiberi