The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet will perform the world premiere of Martin Bresnick’s Mending Time, along with quartets by Guillermo Lago, Robin McLaughlin and Devon McDonald. Saxophonists Jia-Yu Yang and Lewis Lu will join the RCSQ to perform saxophone sextets by Stephen Osio and Noah Marney.

The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet was formed in 2003 when the fates conspired to bring four internationally recognized saxophonists (Susan Fancher, Robert Faub, Steven Stusek and Mark Engebretson) together in Greensboro, North Carolina. The RCSQ takes its name from the area’s luscious red soil. The Quartet presents a varied repertoire from classical to jazz to new music to tango, featuring music by composers such as Ben Johnston, György Ligeti, Chick Corea, Perry Goldstein, Francis Poulenc, Alejandro Rutty, Ben Boone, Steve Reich, Mark Engebretson, Martin Bresnick, Burton Beerman and Gavin Bryars. 

Susan Fancher is known for her deep and poetic musical interpretations. A much sought after performer of new music, she has inspired and premiered dozens of new works for saxophone. Susan Fancher’s career has featured hundreds of concerts internationally as a soloist and as the member of chamber music ensembles, with performances in many of the world’s leading concert venues and contemporary music festivals. She appears on over 20 CDs available on Philips, New World Records, Lotus Records Salzburg, University of Arizona Records, Red Clay Records, Extraplatte and Innova Records. Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the new online magazine Saxophone Today. She is an artist clinician for the Selmer and Vandoren companies and teaches saxophone at Duke University.

Robert Faub is an accomplished classical soloist, chamber musician, jazz artist and educator. As a founding member of the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet he has performed and recorded extensively, and has contributed to the commissioning and premieres of dozens of new works for saxophone quartet. Prior to the formation of RCSQ, Robert toured and recorded with the New Century Saxophone Quartet. He appears on New Century’s recordings Standards and A New Century Christmas. Robert is on staff at High Point University, where he teaches Applied Saxophone, Music Core (music history, theory and ear training) and directs the Jazz Ensemble. He is also the music theory instructor and Director of Bands at Caldwell Academy in Greensboro. Robert is an artist/clinician for Selmer and Vandoren.

Artist-professor of music at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Steven Stusek has built an international reputation with regular concerts and master classes throughout France, Holland, Germany, Canada, China, and the US. He regularly performs with pianist Inara Zandmane, the renowned Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, the Eastwind Ensemble (a reed quintet consisting of saxophone, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet and bassoon) and as an orchestral soloist. In addition to being a clinician for Dansr/Vandoren and Yamaha, he is Past-President of the North American Saxophone Alliance.

Mark Engebretson is Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the recipient of the 2011 North Carolina Artist Fellowship in Composition, and has received major commissions from Harvard University’s Fromm Music Foundation and the Thomas S. Kenan Center for the Arts. He studied at the University of Minnesota (graduating Summa cum Laude), the Conservatoire de Bordeaux (as a Fulbright Scholar), and Northwestern University, where he received the Doctor of Music degree. At Northwestern he studied composition with M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with Frederick Hemke. His teachers in France were Michel Fuste-Lambezat and Jean-Marie Londeix.