Anzû Quartet
Formed in 2020, the Anzû Quartet is an ensemble dedicated to the music of our time and the recent canon. A collaboration between internationally renowned performers of contemporary music, this new quartet pays homage to Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps by actively commissioning and performing new works for this iconic instrumentation alongside Messiaen’s original masterpiece. The members of Anzû are veterans of New York City’s vital contemporary music community and have frequently collaborated with one another across a wide range of musical endeavors and acclaimed international performances. Olivia De Prato (violin), Ashley Bathgate (cello), Ken Thomson (clarinet) and Karl Larson (piano) have been lauded by critics and musicians worldwide, and have been instrumental in helping form and cement the work of important NY-based chamber groups such as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mivos Quartet, Ensemble Signal and Bearthoven.
Ken Thomson Sextet
My compositions for horns and rhythm section — I’m playing alto saxophone with Anna Webber, tenor, Russ Johnson, trumpet, Alan Ferber, trombone, Adam Armstrong, bass, and Daniel Dor, drums. New record out September 7, 2018 on New Focus/Panoramic Recording (Naxos), with American and European tours.
This punk/jazz 4-piece collective has been going strong since 1999 — having toured 33 US states and 19 countries across the USA and Europe, and released 6 CDs and a DVD on Cuneiform Records, Cantaloupe Music/Enja Records, NRW, Plattenfroster and Knitting Factory Records.
I’m on performance faculty here with an incredible team of colleagues. This festival, for emerging composers and performers, features inspiring student-fellows every summer, and is always a highlight of the year — with multiple daily concerts, packed rehearsal days, and an ending marathon concert all at the Mass MoCA museum in the Berkshires, Massachusetts.
I am the music director and alto saxophonist for this 8-piece virtuoso street band that plays music from across the world, performing outdoors at festivals and indoors at theaters across the US and Europe. After working with everyone from Yoko Ono to Goran Bregovic, David Byrne, St. Vincent, and more, Asphalt’s released a re-imagination of the Pixies record Surfer Rosa, which debuted at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in Summer 2013 and was released on Cantaloupe Music in Fall 2014. In 2018, the group played a weeklong set of concerts at the Bravo Vail music festival in Colorado.
Acclaimed internationally-touring electro-acoustic sextet for which I largely play clarinet and bass clarinet. This group, directed by the Bang on a Can collective in NYC, has worked with an exhaustive list of composers over 20 years, while focusing on the music of artistic directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe. I have been a member of this fantastic group since 2013.
