CHICAGO WIND PROJECT

The Chicago Wind Project (CWP) unites five intrepid instrumentalists active in their city’s flourishing contemporary music scene.

Formed in 2019, CWP performs exceptional new repertoire for wind quintet, collaborates with composers in the creation of new work, and teaches contemporary performance practice at the highest level.

    • Pierce Gradone: Signs and Wonders (2017)

    • Aaron Holloway-Nahum: Ezra’s Nursery (2018)

    • Aaron Holloway-Nahum: Dialect of Lunatic Hurricanes (2014)

    • Tania León: De Memorias (2000)

    • Alex Nante: Dynamis (2018)

    • Sarah Nemtsov: Dismissed Thoughts (2009)

    • Augusta Read Thomas: Avian Escapades (2016)

    • Igor Santos: Murmurations II (2017)

    • Anthony J. Stillabower: “A statue is set on a pedestal, and does not move from it” (2020)

    • Music at Emmanuel with Matt Ulery’s Mannerist (2023)

    • Ear Taxi Festival (2021)

    • Livestream for the New Music Chicago Presents series (2021)

    • Constellation Chicago with Matt Ulery’s Mannerist (2021)

    • Wind chamber music master classes at Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University (2023-present)

  • Chris Fisher-Lochhead has been awarded a Fromm Commissioning Grant to write an hourlong, multi-movement piece for CWP. The premiere will take place in late 2025.

Constance Volk is a musician, a painter, and an illustrator. She is a founding member of Ensemble Dal Niente, with whom she performs regularly. Constance is a member of Chicago Wind project and has collaborated with Alarm Will Sound, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Ensemble Adapter, Eighth Blackbird, the Grossman Ensemble and Lookingglass Theatre. She has exhibited paintings at Zhou B Art Center, Miller Beach Arts and Creative District, ArtPrize Grand Rapids, the Oak Park Art League, and Rendezvous Arts. Her illustrations are featured with ‘Density Seeds’, an offshoot of the ‘Density 2036’ solo flute repertoire project. Constance is the creator of ‘Connie’s Characters’, a series of mix and match coloring books full of wacky weirdos. Her paintings, poster art, coloring books and music can be found at constancevolk.com

Oboist Andrew Nogal is an acclaimed orchestral performer, chamber musician, and interpreter of contemporary music. He is the solo oboist with two Chicago groups that commission and perform new music – Ensemble Dal Niente and the Grossman Ensemble – as well as Earspace, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is also a member of the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Wind Symphony. Nogal has appeared at Walt Disney Concert Hall, NY Phil Biennial, Philadelphia Orchestra Barnes-Stokowski Festival, Southern Exposure New Music Series, Beijing Modern Festival, Ojai Festival, June in Buffalo, The Banff Centre, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Cabrillo Festival, and the Sydney Conservatorium. In addition, he has led master classes at universities across the United States. As an alumnus of the Lucerne Festival Academy, the training program founded by Pierre Boulez, he has collaborated regularly with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra. He holds degrees in music performance and art history from Northwestern University and has been awarded top prizes at both the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Darmstadt Courses for New Music.

Katherine Jimoh, clarinetist, vocalist, pianist, singer-songwriter and goldsmith lives in Chicago and works as a freelance musician and jeweler. She is a member of Ensemble Dal Niente, University of Chicago’s Grossman Ensemble and Chicago Wind Project. Working side-by-side with living composers while surrounded by colleagues who specialize in new music provides constant inspiration and creativity. Katherine leads her four-piece band, Katet as singer-songwriter and pianist. When tonality is achieved in an utterly unpredictable way, Katherine feels satisfied with her songwriting. Complex harmonies matched with mixed meters, drones and repetitive vocal lines equals Katet.

Recently named one of 23 artists who are “changing the sound of classical music” by the Washington Post, Ben Roidl-Ward is the Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds positions as Principal Bassoonist of the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Illinois Symphony and Co-Principal Bassoonist of Sinfonia Da Camera. A leading performer of contemporary music, Ben performs with Chicago’s Ensemble Dal Niente and served as a Contemporary Leader for the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland from 2021-2024, where he continues to teach as a bassoon coach in the Lucerne Festival Academy. Ben’s dedication to working with and advocating for composers of his generation has led him to commission numerous works featuring the bassoon, and he has participated in the premieres of over 160 compositions to date. He received his DMA from Northwestern University, where he studied with David McGill and researched methods of notating the bassoon’s multiphonics. His previous teachers include Ben Kamins at Rice University, George Sakakeeny at the Oberlin Conservatory, and Francine Peterson in the Seattle area.

Hornist Matthew Oliphant is a new music and chamber music specialist living in Chicago, IL. As solo hornist with Ensemble Dal Niente, he performs the music of our time by established and emerging composers, as well as classics of the new music repertoire. Oliphant is also a member of the Grossman Ensemble, part of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition (CCCC). In residence at the University of Chicago, the ensemble presents 12 world premiers a year, including pieces by luminaries like Shulamit Ran, David Rakowski, Tania León, and Kate Soper.

In demand as a chamber musician, he is a member of the Chicago Wind Project, and has performed with Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Access Contemporary Music, Present Music, Axiom Brass, Quintet Attaca, and on the Rush Hour concert series. Also an orchestra player he regularly plays with the Lyric Opera (Chicago), Grant Park Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Promusica Chamber Orchestra, and has served as guest principal horn of the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Florida Orchestra, and the Chicago Chamber Orchestra.

All CWP group photos by Ryan Bennett

All CWP group photos by Ryan Bennett

All CWP group photos by Ryan Bennett

All CWP group photos by Ryan Bennett

Interested in working with us?

Please send us a message if you’re looking for a fearless woodwind quintet to perform on your series, instruct your students in composition or applied music performance, or record music for your project.