Hailed by the New York Times as ‘brilliantly stylish,’ Pat Posey (he/they) is a versatile saxophonist, tubaxist, clarinetist, and composer who has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and orchestral musician across the world.
Based in Los Angeles, they are principal saxophonist of the San Bernardino Symphony and have appeared frequently with many other orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Pacific Symphony, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra with musical luminaries such as Yefim Bronfman, Gustavo Dudamel, Jorja Fleezanis, Anthony Parnther, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Their debut solo album they/beast, the first streamable solo album made on a tubax, was released on Avie Records in 2023, featuring music of JS Bach and Philip Glass as well as the debut recording of Shelley Washington’s Mo’ingus. BBC Music Magazine praised their own composition Hymn which closes the album as “fiendishly virtuosic...It’s rather like hearing Liszt play his early pyrotechnic works for the then newly invented piano – a dazzling, unsettling spectacle by a musician pushing the creative envelope.”
During the last decade Posey worked with Michael Tilson Thomas to create a baritone saxophone version of Thomas’ contrabassoon concerto Urban Legend, culminating in the work’s world premiere recording with Edwin Outwater conducting the San Francisco Symphony. Other recent and upcoming engagements include solo engagements with the New World Symphony and MUSE/IQUE, and tours with Wild Up performing the music of Julius Eastman. Past highlights include engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Oregon Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, a solo performance at (le) poisson rouge in New York City, solo recitals in Germany and Russia, and appearances at the Lincoln Center Festival and the BBC Proms in London. They are a founding member of the Los Angeles Reed Quintet (LARQ) and of the performance collective Le Train Bleu, and have appeared at Carnegie Hall with composers John Adams, Thomas Adès, Peter Eötvös, and Michael Tilson Thomas leading concerts of their own works.
In addition to performing as a western classical musician, they collaborate with DJs and electronic music producers to create dance music and bring live saxophone performance to the dancefloor, and have performed alongside Ugandan musician and presidential candidate Bobi Wine. As a longtime collaborator of Iraqi oud virtuoso Rahim Al Haj they created arrangements bringing oud together with string quartet and other western instruments, and appeared in concerts from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Muscat, Oman. They perform on an extensive collection of non-western wind instruments, including the rare North Korean double-reed instrument Jangsenap, and in 2009 performed as ocarina soloist with the YouTube Symphony in a livestream that has been viewed over 1.7 million times.