Kenari Quartet

Applauded for their “flat-out amazing” performances and “stunning virtuosity” (Cleveland Classical), the highly acclaimed Kenari Quartet delivers inspiring performances that transform the perception of the saxophone. The quartet aims to highlight the instrument’s remarkable versatility by presenting meticulously crafted repertoire from all periods of classical and contemporary music.

The Kenari Quartet has found a home performing on many of the premiere chamber music series in the United States. Recent engagements include appearances at Chamber Music Northwest, Chamber Music Tulsa, People’s Symphony Concerts, String Theory, Beaches Fine Arts, Schneider Concerts, and Chamber Music Utica, among others. For many chamber institutions, the Kenari Quartet has been proud to serve as the first ensemble of its kind to be presented.

Kenari has a keen proclivity for collaboration and innovation. As a testament to the flexibility of the saxophone quartet, the group was a featured artist at the 86th Annual Baldwin Wallace Conservatory Bach Festival. Here, they collaborated with performance and academic faculty, as well as student musicians to present an unprecedented residency that explored the influence of baroque music on the late composer David Maslanka and improvisation throughout musical history. The quartet has also participated in collaborations with other artists, including the Imani Winds and WindSync.

Advocating passionately for the continued growth of the saxophone quartet repertoire, the quartet has given world premieres of new works by Mischa Zupko, Joel Love, and David Salleras. It has also participated in consortia to commission composers Martin Bresnick, Carlos Simon, Nina Shekhar, and Ted King-Smith. Through the support of Chamber Music Tulsa, Kenari gave the world premiere of The Current, a 35-minute work by Steven Banks, the group’s baritone saxophonist, which explores the relationship between music and the divine. The Kenari Quartet was also awarded Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant, which facilitated the creation of the… of my… are an…, a work from Corey Dundee, the group’s tenor saxophonist. This project was made possible by the Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund

The Kenari Quartet is regularly involved in community engagement opportunities and educational endeavors, performing and teaching at youth centers and grade schools around the country. In 2023, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association presented the group with the Ann Divine Educator Award. As a result, they participated in Fischoff’s flagship S.A.M. I Am Arts-in-Education Residency program, a weeklong program in which the group created and performed a musical rendition of Malcolm Mitchell’s My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World. The quartet has also given performances, masterclasses, and lectures around the country at various universities, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University, the University of Southern California, the University of Houston, and the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory.

The quartet released their debut album—titled French Saxophone Quartets—on the Naxos Records label. This recording project features early masterworks for saxophone quartet by French composers Eugéne Bozza, Alfred Desenclos, Pierre Max Dubois, Jean Françaix, Gabriel Pierné, and Florent Schmitt. The Kenari Quartet also appears on David Deboor Canfield’s 2018 album, Saxophone Music, Vol. II, with their performance of Canfield’s Opus Pocus, a delightful and witty work that depicts wondrous magicians and illusionists such as Merlin and Houdini.

Formed in 2012 at Indiana University, the quartet’s name is derived from the Malay word “kenari”, which may be translated as “songbird.” The Kenari Quartet seeks to exemplify this concept in concert by communicating with each other and their audiences through sound.