Splinter Reeds
Come see Splinter Reeds perform new works by University of Virginia graduate composers on Friday, February 1st at 8:00pm in Old Cabell Hall.
Splinter Reeds is the West Coast's first reed quintet, comprising five innovative musicians with a shared passion for new music. The ensemble is committed to presenting top tier performances of today’s best contemporary composition, showcasing the vast possibilities of the reed quintet, commissioning new works, and collaborating with fellow musicians and artists. This concert’s program will include original compositions by Becky Brown, Alex Christie, Omar Fraire, Heather Mease, Christopher Luna-Mega, Ben Luca Robertson, Aaron Stepp, and Juan Carlos Vasquez.
As a relatively new chamber music genre, the reed quintet is an evolutionary detour from the traditional woodwind quintet with the advantages of a more closely related instrument family. With approximately 20 professional reed quintets worldwide, Splinter Reeds is explicitly dedicated to cutting edge composition and expanding the existing reed quintet repertoire through the development of new works by emerging and established composers. Splinter Reeds formed in 2013 with the coming together of five colleagues highly active in multiple facets of the Bay Area’s vibrant music scene: Kyle Bruckmann (oboe), Bill Kalinkos (clarinet), David Wegehaupt (saxophone), Jeff Anderle (bass clarinet), and Dana Jessen (bassoon). The sum of their wide ranges of experience – in settings including free jazz, improvisation, electronic music, pop, punk, and metal as well as classical – has enabled them to rapidly zero in on a distinct aesthetic identity.
Recent concert engagements have included performances at Chicago’s Constellation, the Mondavi Performing Arts Center, Berkeley Art Museum, Switchboard Music Festival, FeNAM (Sacramento), April in Santa Cruz Festival of Contemporary Music, Center for New Music (San Francisco), and the Presidio Sessions series. Additionally, they have held residencies at Stanford, Chapman, Northwestern, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The ensemble has received grant awards from Chamber Music America, New Music USA, the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University, the Zellerbach Family Foundation,and the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music.
Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. (map) Parking is available in the central grounds parking garage on Emmet Street, in the C1 parking lot off McCormick Rd, and in the parking lots at the UVA Corner. Handicap parking is available in the small parking lot adjacent to Bryan Hall.
All programs are subject to change.