Splinter Reeds Bio
“…. here’s a group who combine exceptional virtuosity with an adventurous spirit, and a collective approach grounded in shared perceptiveness.” (The Wire Magazine, 2024)
Splinter Reeds is a paradigm-shifting reed quintet, celebrated for their virtuosic performances and adventurous programming. For more than a decade, the ensemble has been instrumental in shepherding new compositions into the contemporary chamber music repertoire by some of the foremost composers of our time while equally championing music by a new generation of artists. Founded in 2013 in Oakland, California, the ensemble comprises five musicians who are pioneers of their practice, individually expanding the possibilities of their instruments and collectively reimagining what a modern reed quintet can sound like.
As the (U.S.) West Coast’s first reed quintet, Splinter has vastly broadened the genre’s possibilities in close collaboration with such composers as Michael Gordon, Eric Wubbels, Sky Macklay, Sam Pluta, Paula Matthusen, Amadeus Regucera, Theresa Wong, Zachary James Watkins, and Ken Ueno. More than a hundred new compositions have been written for the ensemble, including the well-known Splinter by Marc Mellits, which is now one of the most performed works within the reed quintet canon. They have also championed works—often presenting the North American premieres—by numerous European-based composers including Dai Fujikura, Matthew Shlomowitz, and Yannis Kyriakides. Upcoming commissions will soon result in new works by Hugo Morales Murguía, Karola Obermüller, and Marcos Balter.
Splinter’s third full-length album, Dark Currents, was released in August 2024 via Cantaloupe Music and has been met with acclaim, including The Wire’s review of the ensemble as combining “virtuosity with an adventurous spirit”. Notable performances have included appearances at Time:Spans (NYC), Music Current Festival (Dublin, Ireland), Vancouver New Music, Frequency Series at Chicago’s Constellation, indexical (Santa Cruz), Festival of New American Music (Sacramento), and Other Mind’s Nature of Sound (Berkeley), with upcoming performances at the Long Play Festival (NYC) and The Lab (SF). The ensemble has been in residence at academic institutions across the country; they are currently serving as the Steven Stucky Ensemble-in-Residence at Cornell University through the 2026 season.
Splinter Reeds is fiscally sponsored through InterMusic SF.
