Paradise Winds

Link by Michele van der Aa (2025)

Notes: To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the founding of Calefax Reed Quintet - the original reed quintet - Paradise Winds and other global reed quintets participated in a commission called Link. The piece is in four sections highlighting this homogeneous medium and utilizing virtuosic techniques with a mixture of rippling and tastefully crunchy textures bundled in syncopation that mystifies perceptions of rhythm and meter

Cats' ConunDrum by Karalyn Schubring (2024)

Notes: Karalyn Schubring is known for developmental and popular compositional styles in her unique, Arizona-based voice, and has brought these elements to Cats' ConunDrum, a calypso-blues with multiple sections showcasing funky and syncopated rhythms across traditional beat patterns and blues scales. Audiences have fallen in love with and delight in the fun and dance-y expressions of this piece inspired by Paradise Winds' clarinetists' fondness of feline companions and the excitement that comes with wrangling five domestic cats

Quickly featured for over a million listeners on American Public Media’s Performance Today in 2011 and 2013, Paradise Winds launched into recording with Earful Recording and SoundSet Records, releasing Behind Stained Glass with Jackie Meyers Band in 2016, Journey on a Comet’s Tail in 2017, and All Things Bright and Beautiful in 2022 all available on your favorite streaming app. These albums represent a sequence of works donated by composers because the reed quintet genre is both new and the signatures of Paradise Winds are so captivating by composers and audiences alike.

Active educators and free-lance artists, Paradise Winds members support a range of roles around Arizona, at educational institutions such as Arizona State University, Maricopa Community Colleges, the Musical Instrument Museum, Yavapai College in Prescott, and Northern Arizona University, as well with performing groups such as Arizona MusicFest, The Phoenix Symphony, Ballet Arizona, and Arizona Opera among other local groups. They are also advocates for the woodwind arts, partnering with International Clarinet Association, International Double Reed Society, and the North American Saxophone Alliance among others.