PRISM Quartet

The PRISM Quartet ranks among the premier saxophone chamber groups, recognized for prioritizing commissions from living composers while maintaining an expansive stylistic palette that encompasses classical repertoire, jazz idioms, experimental approaches, and traditions from around the world. Their output has proven remarkably abundant since the 1990s, encompassing recordings that examine music by William Albright, JacobTV, Gavin Bryars, William Bolcom, and numerous others. Partnerships have encompassed the Music from China ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, while new pieces have been commissioned from an international roster that includes Bang on a Can’s Julia Wolfe, Tyshawn Sorey, Jennifer Higdon, Zhou Long, and Bernard Rands. The third installment of their continuing Heritage/Evolution series, spotlighting contemporary jazz saxophonists such as Rudresh Mahanthappa, Greg Osby, and Miguel Zenón, appeared in 2024.

University of Michigan music students Matthew Levy, Tim Ries, Michael Whitcombe, and Timothy Miller established the ensemble in 1984. Lineup changes eventually produced a stable configuration of multi-reedists Levy, Timothy McAllister, Zachary Shemon, and Taimur Sullivan. Although each participant maintains separate projects, the quartet has appeared on stages worldwide and occupied residencies at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory. A concert series launched in 1997 continues to introduce new scores by composers from many countries. Two-time recipients of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, they have generated commissions for William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Zhou Long, Julia Wolfe, and additional figures. In 2016 the University of Michigan designated them the first recipients of the Christopher Kendall Award.

Their recorded debut arrived in 1990 as The PRISM Quartet and featured works by Pierre Max Dubois, Jean Baptiste Singelee, Matthew Levy, Phil Woods, and Russell Peck. Real Standard Time followed in 2000, tilting toward jazz and enlisting drummers John Riley, Matt Wilson, and Eric Halverson, organist Larry Goldings, guitarists Ben Monder and Bob Ward, pianist Franck Amsallem, and bassists Tony Scherr and Johannes Weidenmuller. Further releases broadened the range still more through surveys of William Albright’s catalog and the Dutch avant-garde composer JacobTV. Concertos for Saxophone Quartet, issued in 2009, united the group with conductor Gil Rose and Boston Modern Orchestra Project for concertos by William Bolcom and Steven Mackey. The following year produced Antiphony in tandem with the Music from China ensemble, after which projects with Martin Bresnick and David Laganella were documented.

Dedication, released in 2011 to mark their twentieth anniversary, captured music by Levy himself along with Ireland’s Donnacha Dennehy, William Bolcom, Chen Yi, Jennifer Higdon, and others. The Singing Gobi Desert surfaced in 2014 and centered on composers born in China, among them Bright Sheng, Lei Liang, Fang Man, and Huang Ruo. That same year Rudresh Mahanthappa, Jason Moran, Ben Monder, Jay Anderson, Bill Stewart, and François Zayas appeared on People’s Emergency Center. Heritage/Evolution, Vol. 1, the initial entry in the ongoing series devoted to modern jazz saxophone figures, arrived in 2015 with guests that included founding member Tim Ries, Steve Lehman, Dave Liebman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Greg Osby, and Miguel Zenón. The Curtis Project, developed in 2012 with composers from the Curtis Institute of Music, and a recording of English composer Gavin Bryars both reached the public in 2016. The next year brought an album of Wayne Peterson’s music performed with Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Keyboardist Uri Caine recruited the quartet for his 2019 album Book of Days, and 2020’s Surfaces and Essences presented interpretations of scores by Christopher Biggs, Victoria Cheah, Viet Cuong, Emily Koh, and Joseph Sowa.

Heritage/Evolution, Vol. 2, issued in 2021, highlighted jazz saxophonists Ravi Coltrane, Joe Lovano, and Chris Potter. Pueblito Viejo, documenting works by Latin American composers José A. Morales and Roberto Saghini, followed in 2022. Heritage/Evolution, Vol. 3, featuring Tim Ries, Melissa Aldana, Miguel Zenón, and trumpeter Terrell Stafford, appeared in 2024.