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.

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.

Permutations is a bicoastal new music series based in NYC, SF, and LA, founded and curated by Karl Larson (pianist) and Ravi Kittappa (composer). The focus of the Permutations series is to help sustain contemporary ensembles and forward thinking artists of local, national, and international acclaim, to encourage new works and foster relationships between performers and composers, and to bring a wide variety of contemporary music to a steadily growing audience. Permutations strives to highlight the aesthetic and social diversity of the new music community, and prides itself in presenting performances from a rich array of cultural backgrounds each season.

Uptown Spirit is a speakeasy & supper club devoted to celebrating high impact community and cultural organizations in Harlem and beyond. Uptown Spirit partners with nonprofit organizations focused on expanding opportunity and access for all, across education, arts & culture, health, housing and homelessness. All proceeds from Uptown Spirit events directly benefit our partner organizations.

 
Cheers to Uptown!