People

Ken Thomson (clarinet and bass clarinet), a staple of New York City’s contemporary music and jazz communities, is widely regarded for his ability to blend a rich variety of influences and styles into his own musical language while maintaining a voice unmistakably his own. Thomson has a growing catalog of music written for ensembles of differing sizes, and has toured with and released a number of albums with groups that he has created.  His latest project combining the sounds of jazz and contemporary music, Sextet, has toured across the US and Europe and garnered Top Recordings of 2018 placement from websites Second Inversion and AnEarful.  He released two albums with his previous project, a five-piece group called Slow/Fast, that were praised by The New York Times for their “intricate long-form compositions,” and garnered a five-star review in All About Jazz. He has two full-length CDs available of his chamber music compositions: in 2013 with JACK Quartet (Thaw) and in 2016 with cellist Ashley Bathgate and pianist Karl Larson (Restless). He is also active as a freelance clarinetist and saxophonist, performing with Ensemble Signal, International Contemporary Ensemble, Novus, and more. He is on faculty on the Bang on a Can Summer Institute; he is a D’Addario Woodwinds artist. www.ktonline.net.