Guest Artist Series Presents Akropolis Reed Quintet

Celebrating their 13th year making music with a “collective voice driven by real excitement and a sense of adventure” (The Wire), Akropolis has “taken the chamber music world by storm” (Fanfare). As the first reed quintet to grace the Billboard Charts (May 2021), the untamed band of five reed players and entrepreneurs are united by a shared passion to make music that sparks joy and wonder.

Winner of seven national chamber music prizes, including the 2014 Fischoff Gold Medal, Akropolis delivers 120 concerts and educational events each year and has premiered over 130 works. They are the first ensemble of their kind to grace the stage in noteworthy series like Oneppo (Yale University), Chamber Music San Antonio, Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), Summerwinds Münster (Germany), Flagler Museum (Palm Beach), and many more!

“There's nothing tentative in [Akropolis’] approach, and that extends to their programming of multifariously challenging and imaginative new works” (The Wire). Currently, Akropolis is collaborating with GRAMMY-nominated pianist/composer Pascal Le Boeuf and drummer Christian Euman on their Are We Dreaming the Same Dream? project, an album and touring program drawing classical and jazz idioms together to reflect on American identity.

Akropolis’ 2022-23 season will include premieres of the music of Augusta Read Thomas and Omar Thomas; imaginative renditions of music by Ravel, Bernstein, Rameau, Shostakovich, and Gershwin; and touring their 4th album, Ghost Light, lauded for its “range, agility, and grace” (The Whole Note).

Winner of the 2015 Fischoff Educator Award and a nonprofit organization that has received five consecutive grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Akropolis runs a festival in Detroit called "Together We Sound" and an annual, yearlong residency at three public Detroit high schools.

The “pure gold” (San Francisco Chronicle) Akropolis Reed Quintet performs worldwide and is represented exclusively by Ariel Artists.