Your queer sax player based in Montréal with a fondness for New Music and improvisation.  
/╲/\╭[ ᴼᴼ ౪ ᴼᴼ]╮/\╱\

Listening with grateful ears. Not making sound while traveling, just listening. The human lifespan is not long enough for all the sounds we should hear!

Film & Media Composer at Berklee College of Music

Splinter Reeds is the Bay Area’s first reed quintet, composed of five talented and innovative musicians whose reeds vibrate primarily to the sounds of the 20th and 21st Century. Splinter is committed to presenting top tier performances of today’s best new music, demonstrating the vast possibilities of the reed quintet, with an emphasis on commissioning new works, collaborating with fellow musicians and artists, and educating the next generation of musicians and music enthusiasts.

What is a reed quintet? The first reed quintet – Calefax – was formed in the 1980s in Amsterdam; the configuration has since developed into a vibrant and growing chamber music genre. Think of it as an evolutionary detour from your traditional “wind quintet,” with the advantages of a more closely related instrumental family. Subtract a flute and a horn, add a bass clarinet and saxophone. If you did the math correctly, you are left with a uniquely virtuosic and dynamic instrumentation: oboe (Kyle Bruckmann), clarinet (Bill Kalinkos), saxophone (David Wegehaupt), bass clarinet (Jeff Anderle), and bassoon (Dana Jessen).

Brien Henderson's body of work reflects his love for medieval, Renaissance, and modern classical music, with influences such as Johannes Ockeghem, Cristóbal de Morales, J. S. Bach, and Igor Stravinsky. His music eschews meter in favor of prose-like rhythms as it attempts to disorient the listener by placing the familiar against the foreign. 

He first developed and matured as a saxophonist, and now holds a PhD in music composition from the University at Buffalo. Before Buffalo, he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in music composition at San Francisco State University. His Missa Trencadís, for SATB choir and ensemble, premiered at June in Buffalo (2019), exemplifies his neo-Renaissance and trencadís styles, both developed during his doctoral work. His music has been performed by Court-Circuit, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Hausmann String Quartet, Ensemble Linea, Ensemble Signal, Slee Sinfonietta, and Sotto Voce Vocal Collective. In 2016, double bassist Megan McDevitt commissioned Brien's Confession for solo double bass, which she premiered at the University of Michigan in 2017.

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