Chris Pitsiokos

Chris Pitsiokos is an alto saxophonist and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. Aesthetically, his work combines the lyricism of jazz and the intensity of extreme rock forms and noise with the attention to detail and abstraction of contemporary classical music. Known for expanding the vocabulary of the saxophone through extended range, circular breathing, nuanced articulation, and other extended techniques, his recent work also commands considerable cathartic, emotive, and lyrical power. His compositions often function as a platform for performers to express a unified aesthetic vision without subjugating their individual voices as musicians in their own right. In this way his work contrasts with more traditional modes of composition in which the composer or band leader is the sole, or primary arbiter, of a singular vision.