ENSEMBLE Bio

Versatile and vibrant, the musicians of WindSync “play many idioms authoritatively, elegantly, with adroit technique, and with great fun” (All About the Arts). In the span of one performance, the quintet can cover vast musical ground from revitalized standard repertoire to freshly inked works to folk and American Songbook, the common thread telling a compelling story about music history and our human selves.

WindSync frequently eliminates the "fourth wall" between musicians and audience by performing from memory, creating an extraordinary connection. This personal performance style, combined with the ensemble’s three-pronged mission of artistry, education, and community-building, lends WindSync its reputation as ”a group of virtuosos who are also wonderful people, too" (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, and they continued as prize winners at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. The 2023-2024 season features the quintet’s first appearances on the main stage at Shalin Liu Performing Arts Center (MA), Chamber Music Tulsa, and with the Phoenix Chamber Music Society. WindSync previously appeared in concert at Ravinia, the Met Museum, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Building a new repertoire driven by purpose and growing from close collaboration, WindSync’s recent projects include “Song Book, Vol. 3,” a work for multi percussion and wind quintet by Ivan Trevino, which they toured together in a program inspired by songwriters and poets, and “Apollo” by Marc Mellits, written as part of a moon landing 50th anniversary celebration presented in partnership with the Lunar and Planetary Institute. In 2015, the quintet was invited by the Library of Congress to perform the world premiere of Paul Lansky’s “The Long and the Short of it,” commissioned by the Carolyn Royall Just Fund and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Other premieres include “The Cosmos,” a concerto for wind quintet and orchestra by Pulitzer finalist Michael Gilbertson, and works by Akshaya Avril Tucker, Erberk Eryilmaz, Mason Bynes, and Nathalie Joachim.

In demand for their ability to embed in communities by developing relationships with audiences at public spaces and schools, WindSync has served in residencies with Grand Teton Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, and the Lied Center. Winner of the 2022 Fischoff Ann Divine Educator Award, WindSync regularly coaches at training programs nationwide, collaborates with youth orchestras, and performs for thousands of young people each year. In its artistic hometown of Houston, the ensemble presents a concert season in local landmark spaces, partners with businesses and organizations across disciplines of education, science, and art, and presents the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival.

Celebrating its fifteenth anniversary in 2024, WindSync performs world premieres by Viet Cuong, Nicky Sohn, and Shawn Okpebholo. On the heels of “All Worlds, All Times,” WindSync’s Billboard chart-topping 2022 release that “will make you want to get up and dance” (The Whole Note), the quintet is releasing its second commercial album, featuring the works of Miguel Del Aguila and recorded in Studio Two at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

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Photo Credit: Philip Greenberg