Join Jessie Montgomery for her first independently curated event in Chicago, “Preludes, Interludes, and Epilogues”, centered around the release of the new book The Struggle Continues by Jessie’s mother, playwright, director, and performer Robbie McCauley.

~Nois performs and teaches a masterclass for the saxophone studio of UCLA.

~Nois performs Second Nature with the CSUN Wind Ensemble.

~Nois performs in a masterclass and recital for the students of UC Santa Barbara.

~Nois premiers works written by students and faculty at CSU Northridge.

It’s a party two decades in the making! Join Third Coast Percussion and a lineup of very special guests for an all-day celebration in honor of our 20th Anniversary Season. We’re taking over the Epiphany Center for the Arts for a one-day-only series of performances from longtime friends, new collaborators, and percussion legends, culminating in a finale concert featuring TCP and afterparty with live music by Jlin. 

https://epiphanychi.com/events/rhythm-fest-presented-by-third-coast-percussion/

Join us for our annual Discovery Show! Featuring loved works by some of our favorite composers, new works by Chicago friends, and the winners of our 2026 Young Creators Fellowship. This concert will be taking place at Allen Recital Hall at DePaul University.

Forbidden Oracles with Sō Percussion. With Joseph Connor, alto saxophone.

~Nois' DISCOVERY is a recap of the awesome music and people we’ve discovered this past season. This year's DISCOVERY will feature some of our favorite repertoire from this year including works by Viet Cuong and Arturo Márquez alongside a world premiere arrangement of "entr’acte" by Caroline Shaw, arranged by our very own Julian Velasco. 

DISCOVERY will also feature the winners of our 2025 Young Creators Fellowship. ~Nois’s Young Creators Fellowship is an opportunity for talented and creative high-school aged students to create a new collaborative work with ~Nois. This year, we are THRILLED to be premiering new works by Malik Muhammad and John Mangum.

Tickets available now! https://musicbooking.depaul.edu/EventAvailability?WebEventId=20250422nois

Guest Artist Recital. With Joseph Connor, alto saxophone.

Guest artist recital and masterclass. With Uday Singh, alto saxophone.

Q & A with artists after.

Second Nature with the Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble. With Uday Singh, alto saxophone.

Tickets are free!

Second Nature with the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts Wind Ensemble. With Philip Kleutgens, alto saxophone.

Second Nature with the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts Wind Ensemble. With Philip Kleutgens, alto saxophone.

Workshop/Performance of Second Nature at CSU Long Beach, Bob Cole Conservatory

4:00pm

The Shockingly Modern Saxophone Festival celebrates new and experimental music for saxophone. It explores the nearly unlimited sonic potential of the saxophone through new composition, improvisation, extended performance techniques, microtonality, electronic music, multimedia, and other experimental elements. The festival features performances by the Augustana saxophone students and faculty, as well as an annual guest artist. These performances often challenge and expand our ideas about music as they push the saxophone to its technical and expressive limits.

All events are free and open to the public.

The final event at 7:30 p.m. will feature a performance from the ~Nois saxophone quartet (hey that’s US!)

Masterclass at 3pm

Recital at 4:30pm

Varo String Quartet and ~Nois play Poetics of Space Translation Symmetry  by Noah Jenkins

Chicago contemporary music powerhouses ~Nois and Varo String Quartet come together for the first time for the world premiere of Poetics of Space Translation Symmetry by Chicago composer Noah Jenkins. The 45-minute octet features a spatial arrangement with the strings centered in the performance space and the saxophones posted around the perimeter. Tones, players, and quartets sound individually and fuse together into composites, melodic shapes blur into vertical harmony, and just-intonation harmonies are animated as their constituent tones take shape in spatiotemporal patterns. 

This Valentine’s Eve, step into a world of sonic enchantment at the Athenaeum for Imaginary Lovers, a special concert event presented as part of Eighth Blackbird’s Artist-in-Residence.

In this groundbreaking collaboration, Shara Nova, the visionary founder of My Brightest Diamond and Broadway star (notably in “Illinoise”), joins forces with the Grammy Award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird to premiere a new work that blends Nova’s signature pop-chamber style with the group’s genre-bending, virtuosic musicianship.

This one-of-a-kind performance is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to witness a truly unique musical collaboration between two of today’s most innovative forces in contemporary music. Plus, an exciting opener from Chicago’s own saxophone quartet, ~Nois! (That’s US!!)

Featuring Taimur Sullivan on alto saxophone guest artist.

High Tide by Christian Quiñones

Running in a Field of Flowers by Travis Laplante

Free and open to the public.

The evening concert cancelled due to inclement weather & President Jimmy Carter’s Funeral. The rest of the Symposium and ~Nois recital will still take place as scheduled.

Student Composition Reading. With Philip Kleutgens, alto saxophone.

Second Nature with the UVA Wind Ensemble. With Philip Kleutgens, alto saxophone.

Guest Artist Recital. With Philip Kleutgens, alto saxophone.

Second Nature with the CU Boulder Wind Ensemble. With Brandon Quarles, alto saxophone.

This event will be livestreamed by CU Boulder: https://cupresents.org/cu-boulder-college-of-music-Livestream/

Guest Artist Recital. With Brandon Quarles, alto saxophone.

CU Boulder Soundworks. With Brandon Quarles, alto saxophone.

This event will be livestreamed by CU Boulder: https://cupresents.org/cu-boulder-college-of-music-Livestream/

Premieres of CU Boulder faculty. With Brandon Quarles, alto saxophone.

This event will be livestreamed by CU Boulder: https://cupresents.org/cu-boulder-college-of-music-Livestream/