WindSync
Garrett Hudson, flute | Noah Kay, oboe | Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet | Kara LaMoure, bassoon | Anni Hochhalter, horn
“...stood out for the excitement generated and the extraordinary synchronization between the five members.”
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Since winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, WindSync has toured extensively both nationally and internationally, eliciting great reviews and quickly becoming fan favorites due to its intimate performance style. Frequent guests at chamber music series around North America, the quintet eliminates the "fourth wall" between artist and audience by often performing from memory, creating an immediate and intense connection.
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In addition to performing wind quintet masterworks and adapting classics to its instrumentation, WindSync is well-known for championing new works by today's composers. Recent performances have featured works of leading living composers including Akshaya Avril Tucker, Mason Bynes, Viet Cuong, Marc Mellits, Nathalie Joachim, Ivan Trevino, and Michael Gilbertson, with new commissions by composers such as Kian Ravaei, Timo Andres, and Michael Abels planned for future seasons.
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Proponents of the unique ability of small chamber ensembles to explore the possibilities of creative placemaking through music, WindSync has developed projects and relationships with a number of organizations nationwide. In Houston, the ensemble has curated and performed in the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival annually each April since 2017, even continuing the Festival remotely throughout the pandemic. The quintet was a pilot ensemble of Sound Places, a year-long project in Louisiana's Opelousas cultural district exploring the possibilities of creative placemaking led by Chamber Music America with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. By engaging audiences in the concert hall and beyond, WindSync aims to galvanize community involvement and address the needs of a particular place at each performance.
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Reaching over 5,000 students per year through its concerts for young people, WindSync's educational work includes tour stops at public schools and ongoing collaboration with the Houston Youth Symphony Coda social music program. The quintet offers a popular Peter and the Wolf school assembly program for elementary students and also conducts clinics in middle and high schools. Its outreach activities at the college- and university-level has included masterclasses at New World Symphony, the Eastman School of Music, and Northwestern University, to name just a few, and the ensemble has been a resident ensemble for Grand Teton Music Festival and Madeline Island Chamber Music, among many others.
Over nearly two decades of performing throughout the United States and abroad, WindSync has proven itself “a major force in the American chamber music landscape” (Arts and Culture Texas), puncturing performing conventions and stretching the boundaries of what the wind quintet can be through fearless programming and a fresh stage presence. WindSync has appeared on some of the country’s most prestigious stages, including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress, at Chamber Music Northwest and the Ravinia, Moab, Orcas Island, and Phoenix Chamber Music Festivals, and internationally in China, Taiwan, Panama, Mexico, and Canada.
In the spirit of the dressed-down, boyband accessibility that inspired the quintet’s cheeky name, WindSync boasts a unique concert experience featuring largely self-generated repertoire—commissioned by the group or arranged in-house—performed frequently from memory and presented always with a personal touch from the stage. Building a new repertoire driven by purpose and growing from close collaboration, WindSync has commissioned new works from leading and rising American composers, including Viet Cuong, Nathalie Joachim, Shawn Okpebholo, Marc Mellits, Miguel del Aguila, Nicky Sohn, Akshaya Avril Tucker, and Mason Bynes—many of which have become emerging standards of the wind quintet literature. Commissions-in-progress include new music by Kian Ravei, a sextet for piano and winds by Timo Andres to be performed with the composer, and a collaborative work with soprano Karen Slack composed by Michael Abels.
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Highlights of the 2025-2026 season, the group’s 17th, included collaborations with pianists Jon Kimura Parker and Evren Ozel, the Balourdet Quartet, and with the San Diego Symphony as soloists for the premiere of a new work by Ivan Trevino. WindSync also returned to the Grand Teton Music Festival, Chamber Music Tulsa, Caramoor and the Chautauqua Institution, as well as Chamber Music Northwest for an original collaboration with the dance company BodyVox.
The April 2026 release of the album Nadia celebrated Nadia Boulanger’s American legacy and christened the ensemble’s exclusive recording relationship with Delos/Outhere Music. Hailed by Gramophone as “ingenious and valuable,” the album includes world premiere recordings of the wind quintet by Marion Bauer and arrangements by WindSync bassoonist Kara LaMoure. The quintet’s 2024 album WindSync Plays Miguel del Aguila, recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, debuted at number one on the Billboard classical charts.
A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, WindSync presents a year-round concert series as well as the annual Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival in Houston, Texas. The Festival integrates guest artists of national renown with WindSync members and local musicians from Houston’s vibrant music scene for artistic cross-pollination. The 10th anniversary edition of the Festival in 2026 featured a one-of-a-kind collaboration with the Balourdet Quartet for an ambitious chamber performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde without conductor.
Since the creation of a costumed and choreographed production of Peter and the Wolf that launched the ensemble’s first performances, education has been central to WindSync’s mission. WindSync has served on the faculty of Madeline Island Chamber Music and as a guest artist at universities, conservatories and music festivals across the country, including the New World Symphony, Yale School of Music, Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, Kent Blossom Music Festival and dozens of others. WindSync also maintains a year-round educational partnership with the Houston Youth Symphony Coda Music Program, and in 2022 was honored with the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association’s Ann Divine Educator Award.
Founded at Rice University in 2009, WindSync embarked on a robust touring career after winning the Concert Artists Guild’s 2012 Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, continuing as prize winners at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. WindSync’s tri-coastal musicians—Garrett Hudson, Noah Kay, Graeme Steele Johnson, Anni Hochhalter and Kara LaMoure—make their homes in New York City, San Francisco and Houston.
Videos
Programs & Repertoire
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PROGRAM I - BOULANGER’S AMERICAN LEGACY – VERSION 1 MADEMOISELLE & HER STUDENTS
In this program, WindSync spotlights music in the United States growing out of the 20th century, an era when European art music took on a distinctly American accent, and the remarkable teacher who guided the shift: Nadia Boulanger. Music by Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, and Quincy Jones highlights the wide range of musicians who were drawn to study with Boulanger and the unique styles she supported. The second half of the program features the revival of the wind quintet by Marion Bauer, Boulanger’s first American pupil and an important teacher, composer, and writer in 20th century New York.
Nadia Boulanger/arr. LaMoure: Three Pieces
I. Modéré
II. Sans vitesse et à l'aise
III. Vite et nerveusement rhythmé
Elliott Carter: Quintet (1948)
Allegretto
Giocoso
Quincy Jones: The Midnight Sun Will Never Set
Marion Bauer: Quintet for Woodwinds, Op. 48
Philip Glass/arr. LaMoure: Selected etudes
PROGRAM II – BOULANGER’S AMERICAN LEGACY – VERSION 2 PAST & PRESENTIn this program, WindSync spotlights music in the United States growing out of the 20th century, an era when European art music took on a distinctly American accent, and the remarkable teacher who guided the shift: Nadia Boulanger. Music by Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, and Quincy Jones highlights the wide range of musicians who were drawn to study with Boulanger and the unique styles she supported. Showcasing Boulanger’s lasting legacy, the second half of the program features works written for WindSync by women.
Nadia Boulanger/arr. LaMoure: Three Pieces
I. Modéré
II. Sans vitesse et à l'aise
III. Vite et nerveusement rhythmé
Elliott Carter: Quintet (1948)
Allegretto
Giocoso
Quincy Jones: The Midnight Sun Will Never Set
Philip Glass/arr. LaMoure: Selected etudes
Akshaya Avril Tucker: Hold Sacred*
Nicky Sohn: A Night at Birdland*** Written for WindSync in 2020-2025, Hold Sacred explores meditative, gestural, and effervescent soundscapes, informed by Tucker’s training in Hindustani music and as an Odissi dancer
** Written for WindSync in 2023-2024, each movement of this work is based on a quote by saxophonist Charlie Parker, composed in a colorful style reminiscent of the quintets by Jean Francaix.
COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMS
TURNING POINTS: WINDSYNC + PIANO
WindSync offers a wind sextet program connecting George Gershwin and W. A. Mozart, two composers whose experiments in pairing piano with winds indelibly changed their careers.W. A. Mozart: Serenade in C Minor, K. 388
W. A. Mozart: Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds, K. 452
George Gershwin/arr. WindSync: Summertime
George Gershwin/arr. Gutschy: Rhapsody in Blue
ALTERNATIVE REPERTOIREBy American composers:
Omar Thomas: Shenandoah
A setting of the folk song
Viet Cuong: Flora
Movements depicting the life cycles and survival of desert plants that combine early music influences with mimicry of electronic effects
George Gershwin/arr. WindSync: SummertimeEarlier repertoire:
Antonio Vivaldi/arr. LaMoure: La Follia
W. A. Mozart/arr. Rechtman: Serenade in C minor, K. 388 -
PROGRAM I - BOULANGER’S AMERICAN LEGACY
In this program, WindSync spotlights music in the United States growing out of the 20th century, an era when European art music took on a distinctly American accent, and the remarkable teacher who guided the shift: Nadia Boulanger. Featured on WindSync’s 2026 album Nadia, music by Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, and Quincy Jones highlights the wide range of musicians who were drawn to study with Boulanger and the unique styles she supported. Showcasing Boulanger’s lasting legacy, the second half of this program may feature recent works written for WindSync by American composers.
Nadia Boulanger/arr. LaMoure: Prelude in F and Three Pieces
I. Modéré
II. Sans vitesse et à l'aise
III. Vite et nerveusement rhythmé
Philip Glass/arr. LaMoure: Etude No. 17
Elliott Carter: Quintet (1948)
Allegretto
Giocoso
Quincy Jones: The Midnight Sun Will Never Set
PROGRAM II – MIRRORS OF THE MINDCarl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43 is the masterpiece of its genre, and here WindSync tours the work for the first time in the ensemble’s 18 years. Faced with a uniquely broad sonic color palette, Nielsen wrote that he “attempted to render the character of the various instruments.” In doing so, he indelibly captured the distinctive personalities--both the charms and the pathologies--of himself and the members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Bassoonist Kara LaMoure’s virtuosic arrangement of Vivaldi’s “La Follia” (“Madness”) does the same for WindSync, through variations on the most popular theme in music history.
The program also includes a new multi-movement work by Kian Ravaei (b. 1999), one of the most in-demand young composers in the United States. Ravaei’s work takes tone painting to a new level, synthesizing diverse inspirations ranging from the Iranian music of his ancestral heritage to the pulsating electronic music of late-night dance clubs. He has received fellowships from Copland House, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Chamber Music Northwest, as well as a New Music USA Creator Fund Award and a Barlow Endowment Commission. He is currently a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School.
Carl Nielsen/arr. Kara LaMoure: Benedictus Dominus
Carl Nielsen: Wind Quintet, Op. 43
Antonio Vivaldi/arr. LaMoure: Trio Sonata in D minor “La Follia,”RV 63
Kian Ravaei: New WorkPROGRAM III – TOWARD THE LIGHT
Toward the Light is a program of new music exploring topics at the forefront of recent cultural shifts: social justice, personal resilience, and mental health. The program engages composers who, having lived through these upheavals, address the challenges and realities head-on yet reach toward hope. The distinctive and imperfect instruments of the wind quintet represent a societal microcosm with which the composers sculpt meaning, and the forms of the musical works take on narrative qualities that reflect arcs of life and thought.
Nathalie Joachim: Stumble, Fall, Fly
Akshaya Avril Tucker: What will you hold
Shawn Okpebholo: Rise
Viet Cuong: FloraCOLLABORATIVE PROGRAMS
TIMO ANDRES NEW WORK FOR WIND QUINTET AND PIANO
WindSync has commissioned composer and pianist Timo Andres to write a major work for wind quintet and piano. Andres will develop the program in collaboration with WindSync and perform as pianist. As a composer-performer, Andres made his recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2023, and his recent projects include a tour with the Calder Quartet, a piano concerto for Aaron Diehl and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and orchestrations and arrangements for Justin Peck’s production of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise. He was nominated for a Grammy award for his performances on 2021’s The Arching Path by composer Chris Cerrone, and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016.
The collaboration between WindSync and Andres traces a thread of common musical influences between Andres and the repertoire for winds. Francis Poulenc and György Ligeti, composers of two 20th century masterworks for wind quintet, share a sense of humor and self-consciousness. Works by John Adams and Philip Glass, two leading lights of American music and mentors to Andres, reveal a direct lineage. Supported by lead commissioner Harvard Musical Association, the program will premiere in 2027.
Philip Glass/arr. Kara LaMoure: Etude No. 17
György Ligeti: selections from music for wind quintet
Francis Poulenc: Sextet
John Adams/arr. Preben Antonsen: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Timo Andres: New WorkTURNING POINTS: WINDSYNC + JON KIMURA PARKER
WindSync offers a wind sextet program connecting George Gershwin and W. A. Mozart, two composers whose experiments in pairing piano with winds indelibly changed their careers.W. A. Mozart: Serenade in C Minor, K. 388
W. A. Mozart: Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds, K. 452
George Gershwin/arr. WindSync: Summertime
George Gershwin/arr. Gutschy: Rhapsody in BlueIVAN TREVINO: SPACE JUNK
This musical story for families recounts the adventure of a little star--and what happens when the stars around her have made a mess. The piece features WindSync doing triple duty as narrators, musicians, and theatrical performers. Movement and interactivity immerse the audience in the world of the little star and inspire us all to create beautiful things. The piece is written for flexible presentation, with versions for wind quintet alone, for wind quintet plus beginning musicians, and for wind quintet plus symphony orchestra.
Composer, educator, and percussionist Ivan Trevino is a longtime friend and collaborator of WindSync. Space Junk premieres with the San Diego Symphony on April 11, 2026.
Ivan Trevino: Space Junk
THE SONG OF THE EARTH
In this one-of-a-kind collaboration, WindSync leans on their internal chemistry to join vocal, string, and percussion artists for an ambitious performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) without conductor, embracing the spirit of Schoenberg’s arrangement and this most intimate expression from Mahler—a blend of his two signature genres of song and symphony—to play it as chamber music.
Responding to the strikingly transparent textures in Gustav Mahler’s would-be ninth symphony, Das Lied, Arnold Schoenberg began a stripped-down arrangement of the symphonic song cycle for his Society for Private Musical Performances, Schoenberg’s safe haven for new music in conservative Vienna. The hour-long work itself serves as a haven for Mahler’s most personal sentiments, pitting full-bodied exuberance against the blackness of death and a final hope for salvation in “the luminous blue of the horizon…forever.”
WindSync will produce its first Das Lied performance in May 2026 at the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival with the Balourdet Quartet and friends.
Gustav Mahler/arr. Arnold Schoenberg & Rainer Riehn: Das Lied von der Erde
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PROGRAM I – MIRRORS OF THE MIND
Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43 is the masterpiece of its genre, and here WindSync tours the work for the first time in the ensemble’s 18 years. Faced with a uniquely broad sonic color palette, Nielsen wrote that he “attempted to render the character of the various instruments.” In doing so, he indelibly captured the distinctive personalities--both the charms and the pathologies--of himself and the members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Bassoonist Kara LaMoure’s virtuosic arrangement of Vivaldi’s “La Follia” (“Madness”) does the same for WindSync, through variations on the most popular theme in music history. The program also includes a new multi-movement work by Kian Ravaei (b. 1999), one of the most in-demand young composers in the United States.
Carl Nielsen: Wind Quintet, Op. 43
Antonio Vivaldi/arr. Kara LaMoure: Trio Sonata in D minor “La Follia,”RV 63
Kian Ravaei: New WorkPROGRAM II – FLORA
Flora is a concert-length collection of movements for wind quintet inspired by the life cycles and survival of plants by acclaimed American composer Viet Cuong. The music is by turns spiky and spiritual, as Cuong’s acoustic mimicry of electronic effects interplays with Renaissance-inspired counterpoint.
Viet Cuong: Flora
PROGRAM III – TOWARD THE LIGHT
Toward the Light is a program of new music exploring topics at the forefront of recent cultural shifts: social justice, personal resilience, and mental health. The program engages composers who, having lived through these upheavals, address the challenges and realities head-on yet reach toward hope. The distinctive and imperfect instruments of the wind quintet represent a societal microcosm with which the composers sculpt meaning, and the forms of the musical works take on narrative qualities that reflect arcs of life and thought.
Nathalie Joachim: Stumble, Fall, Fly
Akshaya Avril Tucker: What will you hold
Shawn Okpebholo: RiseCOLLABORATIVE PROGRAMS
Timo Andres New Work for Wind Quintet and Piano
WindSync has commissioned composer and pianist Timo Andres to write a major work for wind quintet and piano. Andres will develop the program in collaboration with WindSync and perform as pianist. As a composer-performer, Andres made his recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2023, and his recent projects include a tour with the Calder Quartet, a piano concerto for Aaron Diehl and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and orchestrations and arrangements for Justin Peck’s production of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise. He was nominated for a Grammy award for his performances on 2021’s The Arching Path by composer Chris Cerrone, and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. Supported by lead commissioner Harvard Musical Association, the program will premiere in 2027.
Francis Poulenc: Sextet
Timo Andres: New WorkTURNING POINTS: WINDSYNC + JON KIMURA PARKER
WindSync offers a collaborative program with pianist Jon Kimura Parker that connects George Gershwin and W. A. Mozart, two composers whose endeavors pairing piano with winds served as turning points in their careers.
W. A. Mozart: Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds, K. 452
George Gershwin/arr. WindSync: Summertime
George Gershwin/arr. Gutschy: Rhapsody in BlueIVAN TREVINO: SPACE JUNK
This musical story for families recounts the adventure of a little star--and what happens when the stars around her have made a mess. The piece features WindSync doing triple duty as narrators, musicians, and theatrical performers. Movement and interactivity immerse the audience in the world of the little star and inspire us all to create beautiful things. The piece is written for flexible presentation, with three versions: for wind quintet alone, for wind quintet plus beginning musicians, or for wind quintet plus symphony orchestra.
Space Junk premiered with the San Diego Symphony on April 11, 2026. View here.
Ivan Trevino: Space Junk
THE SONG OF THE EARTH
In this one-of-a-kind collaboration, WindSync leans on their internal chemistry to join vocal, string, and percussion artists for an ambitious performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) without conductor, embracing the spirit of Schoenberg’s arrangement and this most intimate expression from Mahler—a blend of his two signature genres of song and symphony—to play it as chamber music.
Responding to the strikingly transparent textures in Gustav Mahler’s would-be ninth symphony, Das Lied, Arnold Schoenberg began a stripped-down arrangement of the symphonic song cycle for his Society for Private Musical Performances, Schoenberg’s safe haven for new music in conservative Vienna. The hour-long work itself serves as a haven for Mahler’s most personal sentiments, pitting full-bodied exuberance against the blackness of death and a final hope for salvation in “the luminous blue of the horizon…forever.”
WindSync produced its first Das Lied performance in May 2026 at the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival with the Balourdet Quartet and friends. View here.
Gustav Mahler/arr. Arnold Schoenberg & Rainer Riehn: Das Lied von der Erde
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LIGHT AND LIVELY
An option for audiences who prefer to hear popular styles and well-known works with an introduction to quintet repertoire.W. A. Mozart: Serenade in C Minor, K. 388
George Gershwin/arr. WindSync: Summertime
Various/arr. LaMoure after Väsen: Botanist Suite
Viet Cuong: FloraWINTER MUSIC
WindSync shares music from the 16th century to today in this cozy program exploring winter as depicted in art and dance.Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Exultate Deo (2’)
Ottorino Respighi/arr. Marquardt: L’adorazione dei Magi from Trittico Botticelliano (9’)
Arcangelo Corelli/arr. LaMoure: Concerto grosso in G minor “Fatto per la Notte di Natale,” Op. 6 No. 8 (15’)
Valerie Coleman: Umoja (3’)
Jacques Offenbach/arr. LaMoure: Ballet of the Snowflakes from A Trip to the Moon (9‘)
Leroy Anderson/arr. Schweitzer: Sleigh Ride (2’)SONG BOOK: WINDSYNC + PERCUSSION
In this collaboration with percussionist Ivan Trevino, WindSync shows a heartfelt side inspired by songwriters and poets. After trading individual sets, WindSync and Trevino join forces for a suite of instrumental songs.WindSync
Marc Mellits: Apollo (17’)
Jimmie Davis/arr. Ziemba: You Are My Sunshine (2’)Ivan Trevino, marimba (all works composed by the performer)
Anthem from Song Book, Vol. 1 (3.5’)
Vessels from Song Book, Vol. 1 (3’)
Baila from Song Book, Vol. 2 (3.5’)
Ghost Arms from Song Book, Vol. 2 (3.5’)
Strive to be Happy (5’)WindSync and Ivan Trevino
Radiohead/arr. WindSync: Exit Music (For a Film) (5’)
Ivan Trevino: Song Book, Vol. 3 (13’)
Son Lux/arr. WindSync: Lost it to Trying (4’)
Projects
