Biography
Pat Posey performs on saxophone while also handling clarinet and the tubax, a reshaped contrabass saxophone, and maintains parallel careers as an arts administrator and educator, earning recognition for extensive joint projects alongside a sustained focus on modern repertoire. Born in Columbus, Ohio, during 1978, he spent his formative years in Woodbridge, Virginia, adjacent to Washington, D.C. After earning an undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University, he completed a master’s at the University of Michigan under Donald Sinta’s saxophone instruction. Arts administration absorbed a major share of his efforts from the outset; in the early 2000s he served as Assistant Orchestra Librarian, Personnel Manager, and Orchestra Manager at New York’s Juilliard School, rising in 2007 to Director of Orchestral Activities and Planning and remaining until 2012. He simultaneously held posts with Connecticut’s Stamford Symphony Orchestra, New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Florida’s Brevard Music Center, then directed artistic operations for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia, across 2010 and 2011. Between 2012 and 2018 he acted as Vice President of Artistic Planning and Educational Programs at the Music Academy of the West. Posey has appeared with both standard symphony orchestras and experimental contemporary ensembles. His orchestral work includes engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He performed John Adams’ City Noir with the Juilliard Orchestra under the composer’s direction and at the BBC Proms. Additional appearances with the group Wild Up produced recordings devoted to Julius Eastman. Posey co-founded the Los Angeles Reed Quintet, belongs to Le Train Bleu, and has worked with multiple world-music artists. In 2022 he joined saxophonist Nadia Shpachenko on the album Lewis Spratlan: Invasion; the following year he issued they/beast on the Avie label, featuring the tubax he champions.
Albums