five members of windsync stand together while holding their instruments

WindSync

January 28, 2024 | Polsky Theatre

Past Event


WindSync has established itself as a vibrant chamber ensemble performing wind quintet masterworks, adapting beloved music to their instrumentation and championing new works by today’s composers.


This quintet often eliminates the "fourth wall" between musicians and audience by performing from memory, creating an intimate connection. This personal performance style, combined with the ensemble’s three-pronged mission of artistry, education and community building, lends WindSync its reputation as virtuosos, as well as wonderful people (Alison Young, Classical MPR).

WindSync launched an international touring career after winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In 2018, the ensemble was a finalist at the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. WindSync has appeared in recitals at the Library of Congress, Ravinia, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Their commissions and premieres include “The Cosmos,” a concerto for wind quintet and orchestra by Pulitzer finalist Michael Gilbertson, and recent works by Ivan Trevino, Marc Mellits, Erberk Eryilmaz and Akshaya Avril Tucker. Their album, “All Worlds, All Times” was released on Bright Shiny Things in 2022, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard Traditional Classical charts.

WindSync’s thematic programming responds to the people and places where they work. In the members’ artistic hometown of Houston, the quintet curates a four-concert season and presents the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival each April, spotlighting everyday public spaces as gathering places for culture.

The ensemble's educational work includes tour stops at public schools and ongoing collaborations with the social music programs Sistema Ravinia and Houston Youth Symphony Coda Music Program. WindSync has been featured in educational concerts presented by the Seattle Symphony, the Hobby Center and Orli Shaham's “Bach Yard,” the ensemble’s concerts for young people that reach over 5,000 students per year. In recognition of this work, WindSync was the recipient of the 2022 Ann Divine Fischoff Educator Award. 

Members of WindSync have led master classes at New World Symphony, Eastman School of Music, Florida State University and Northwestern University, among others. The quintet has also served as ensemble-in-residence for the Nevada Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington (Kentucky), the National Museum of Wildlife Art and the Grand Teton Music Festival.


This project is generously funded by Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.

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