Fifteen Minutes of Fame:
featuring Andrew Hosler

Hailed as "the ideal collaborator for new music" by Brutal New Music Review, and as a "new music virtuoso" by Leslie Tate - saxophonist and new music curator Drew Hosler (he/him/his) is an advocate for contemporary music. Drew's playing has been praised for its "beautiful tone and technique" by Brutal New Music Review and has been recognized for "his unwavering commitment to bringing fresh, contemporary compositions to the forefront." by Local 4. Drew has commissioned, premiered, and collaborated on over 200 pieces by award-winning composers such as Andrew Mead, Jamie Leigh Sampson, David Heinick, Marilyn Shrude, Matthew Kennedy, Quinn Mason, and Gregory Wanamaker. His debut solo album, delta waves, features thirteen world premiere recordings of 21st century works for the tenor saxophone. His 2020 EP Hope Will Carry Us featured thirteen new works for solo tenor saxophone. Additionally he has released recordings of works by Robert Lemay, Ehsan Saboohi, Robert Gross, along with others. Drew currently serves as the principal saxophonist of the Cleveland Winds and Cleveland Repertory Orchestra. He has performed with Canton Symphony Orchestra, Ohio Light Opera Orchestra, Lima Symphony Orchestra, Saginaw Eddy Concert Band, Black Voltron, Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project Improvisation Orchestra, and the Decho Ensemble.

Drew is an avid performer as a soloist. He premiered Griffin Candey's new tenor saxophone concerto, Double Aviaries, with Matthew Salvaggio and the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra during their 23/24 season. He also gave the world premiere of Josh Trentadue's tenor saxophone concerto, To fly and to fall, with conductor Kim Fleming and musicians at The University of Michigan. He can also be heard performing Robert Gross' Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Nine Instruments on the album Penumbra from New Focus Records. Additionally, he has performed concerti by Walter Mays and William Albright with the Bowling Green Philharmonia and the BGSU Concert Band. He has also performed a variety of music for solo saxophone at Classical Revolution Cleveland, New Music Gathering, University of Kansas New Music Guild, 15-Minutes-of-Fame, New Music Mosaic, Boston New Music Initiative, Local 4's She Scores Festival, as well as various North American Saxophone Alliance Conferences. He has also been featured on WSMR Florida's Classical Music Station's Modern Notebook hosted by Tyler Kline.

Drew has been awarded prizes for numerous competitions including the American International Music Competition, Cambridge Music Competition, Bach Music Competition, Vivaldi International Music Competition, Charleston International Music Competition's Contemporary Music Competition, London Classical Music Competition, American International Music Competition, and the Bowling Green State University (BGSU) Competition in Music Performance.

As a chamber musician, Drew has performed at the IDAGIO's Global Concert Hall Arts@Future, Zagreb World Saxophone Congress, US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, District New Music Coalition, and various Bowling Green New Music and Art Festivals. As a member of the Tekhenu Quartet, he was awarded the Michigan Prize at the 2022 Briggs Chamber Music Competition for their performance of Griffin Candey's God Forbid. He was awarded first and second prize at the Douglas Wayland Chamber Music Competition with the Epsilon Saxophone Quartet and the Fifth Circle Reed Quintet respectively. These ensembles have been heard on WGTE and WCLV.

Drew is the saxophonist, co-founder, and artistic director for the new music ensemble, The _____ Experiment. To date, the ensemble has worked with composers to premiere over 30 works for mixed chamber ensemble. In March 2020, The _____ Experiment released their debut album, Conversations, which includes seven world premiere recordings from five different composers which was funded partially by the Running Start Competition through Michigan State University. The ensemble has performed across the country, including for New Music Chicago, Michigan State University, Potsdam Crane School of Music, the Flint Institute of Music, University of Florida, University of Miami, and Narloch Piano Studio in Chicago. In addition, the ensemble was awarded multiple prizes through the Charleston International Music Competition's 2021 Contemporary Music Competition.

Drew currently serves on the Professional Development Committee for the North American Saxophone Alliance. Previously, he served as the Assistant Managing Director for the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, an intern for the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts, a beta tester for Silverstein Works, the Marketing and Media Assistant for the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, and an intern for the Akropolis Quintet. He also served as the Woodwind Sectional/Chamber Music Coach for the Cleveland Pride Band.

Drew currently serves as a Saxophone Instructor, Chamber Music Instructor, and Coordinator of Wind Studies for the Academy at the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as a Music Instructor (Saxophone and Clarinet Faculty) for the Music Institute at the University of Akron. Previously he served as a Lecturer at Case Western Reserve University's Department of Music.

Drew has participated in festivals such as the SPLICE Institute and the Frederick L. Hemke Institute at Snow Pond Music Festival. Additionally, he is a fellow for both the Cortona Sessions for New Music and The Next Festival of Emerging Artists. Drew holds a Master of Music in Saxophone Performance, a Master of Music in Chamber Music, and a Certificate in Arts Entrepreneurship & Leadership from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. He also holds a Bachelor of Music in Saxophone Performance from Bowling Green State University College of Music Arts. Prior to that, he studied at the Flint Institute of Music. His primary instructors have been Timothy McAllister, John Sampen, and Jeffrey Price.

Find more at https://andrewhosler.com/

Concert Dates

15 one-minute selections for Drew Hosler

  • Partita for Tenor Saxophone in D minor

    E. Bugra Balci

    Virtuoso Concert Pianist and Composer with the awards by NASA, IBM, Yamaha, AT&T, InVision Author of The Virtuoso Pianist and Art of Piano (10800 pages, 179 books of New Era Music) Yamaha grand piano endorser artist. www.ebugrabalci.com

    There is no program note. Please feel free to play the composition as you feel the most comfortable about the phrases. You can play with the tempos or the dynamics. Just make it as possible as yours. Thank you.

  • Red's Howler

    David Bohn

    David Bohn received degrees in composition from the University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Illinois. He currently resides in West Allis, Wisconsin, and is the music coordinator at Peace Methodist Church in Brookfield. He is the President of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers.

    [No Program Note]

  • China Rose

    Ross James Carey

    Ross James Carey is a foreign professor at Sias University, Henan, China. From Aotearoa/New Zealand, his work combines quotation and cross-genre elements whilst looking at questions of place and identity. Recent works include Pendopo Dreaming for wind quintet, and a song cycle Chang’an Dreaming (poems by Margaret T. South).

    China Rose for tenor saxophone was composed in May 2024 after attending the Beijing Modern Music Festival. Whilst there, I was struck by the multitude of gorgeous roses lining roadsides, walkways and parks. The slight melancholy of the piece speaks perhaps of my feelings of leaving roses and friends behind.

  • Duo

    Joshua Paul Daniels

    Joshua P. Daniels (he/him/his) is a composer based in the Northalsted community of Chicago, Il. He won Spring Arbor University's 2018 Christmas Carol Composition Competition and won an honorable mention in Central Michigan University's 2020 Large Ensemble Composition Competition. You can reach him on Instagram @joshuapdanielsmusic or at joshuapdanielsmusic@gmail.com

    Duo combines compound melody with complex harmonic structure. The piece moves between the two whole tone collections like common practice music moves between chords—creating music moves toward the next whole tone collection, all while including multiple melodies that combine to make one wholistic piece.

  • in memoriam Les

    Eric Delgado

    Originally from California, Eric Delgado currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He recently completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the guidance of Les Thimmig.

    This work is dedicated to my late doctoral advisor, Leslie Thimmig, professor of saxophone and composition at UW-Madison. He taught me to trust myself as a composer and the music will follow.

  • String Theory III

    Jan Willem van Dormolen

    Jan Willem van Dormolen was born in 1956 in Den Haag, Netherlands. He studied clarinet, saxophone and composition at the Utrecht Conservatory and worked as a teacher for those instruments for 3 years. He then made a career switch to freelance translator. In the past few years, he's taken up composing again.

    String Theory III is basically a string of repeting low d's. Every occurrence there is a (ever growing) chance the note is "pushed" up a bit (or a lot), the actual chance being governed by the Poisson distribution. Dynamics and phrasing are basically determined by the same chance operations.

  • Memory Bed

    Brian Ellis

    Brian Ellis is a creative coder, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. His artistic drive lies in using code to democratize creative expression. He founded the Brooklyn Motion Capture Dance Ensemble to explore this concept through the medium of dance, writes participatory chamber music to explore it through concert music settings.

    This is a process piece about recording gear, capturing a memory, ideas fading, trying and failing to hold on to things that are special to you, and the new special things that come in to fill their place.

  • Accarezzevole

    Joshua Haugen

    Joshua Haugen (b. 1998) is a composer, saxophonist, and educator based in Lansing, Michigan, specializing in the performance, creation, and promotion of new music. Joshua is a professional music educator, currently employed in Lansing teaching K-8 music and private lessons. Joshua graduated from Michigan State University with a Master of Music in Composition, studying with David Biedenbender and Alexis Bacon. Prior, he graduated from Western Michigan University in 2021 with dual Bachelor of Music degrees in Composition and Saxophone Performance.

    "Accarezzevole" is a short miniature for solo tenor saxophone, adapted from my piano piece of the same name. The piece is dedicated to Drew Hosler and written for 2024 Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame Call for Scores. Originally written in the midst of 2020, the piece is meant as an in-your-face, aggressive concert opener/closer, the work exploring many different elements of my musical language.

  • The Saxophonist

    Stanley M. Hoffman

    Stanley M. Hoffman (b. 1959, Cleveland, Ohio) holds degrees in Music Composition from Brandeis University (PhD), New England Conservatory of Music (MM) and Boston Conservatory (BM). His music is published by ECS Publishing, Oxford University Press, and Fatrock Ink. Senior Editor at ECS Publishing Group 1998–2021. Freelance editor, composer.

    “The Saxophonist” is a tone portrait of a busy performer. It’s marked “Mercurial” referring to the swift Roman “messenger of the gods.” I led a different sort of life, so I don’t know how performers like Drew maintain their teaching and performing duties while managing to have a personal life.

  • Nīvaraṇa III

    Eduardo Luís Patriarca

    Born in the city of Porto, Portugal, in April 1970. He studied piano and composition. He attended a Masters and PhD in Composition at the University of Aveiro. His writing linked to Buddhism, reminiscent of the Spectral School, uses fractal construction and the inclusion of patterns close to mantras.

    Nīvaraṇa III (Sloth and Torpor) is the third from the nīvaraṇa cycle. Each piece corresponds to one of the five hindrances that become obstacles on the Buddhist meditation. Sloth and torpor refers to that heaviness of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and thick depression.

  • Como una brisa ...

    Rafael de Rioja

    Rafael de Rioja (Huelva, 1998) graduated in Composition at the "Manuel Castillo" Music Conservatory of Seville. Young and restless for knowledge, he completes his training through courses and congresses such as: International Composition Course of Villafranca del Bierzo; International University Course “Música en Compostela”; Contemporary Music Composition 2021 SGAE Foundation; etc.

    The transience expressed in a minute. As can be seen in the title of the piece, a breeze transformed into sounds.

  • Palindromes for a Rainy Day

    Edward Ruchalski

    Ruchalski’s compositions have been performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, MASS MoCA, Symphony Space on Broadway, the Festival of Miami and elsewhere. His compositions have been performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Helen Boatwright, Stephen Porter, Robert Black, Shiau-uen Ding, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and others.

    Palindromes for a Rainy Day was composed specifically for this concert and performer. The opening phrase came to me as I listened to the rain and thunder in the early morning of the last day of August. It is dedicated to Drew Hosler.

  • Goldilocks

    Jaz Thomasian

    Jaz Thomasian (they/them) is a Cleveland-based composer, improviser, and sound artist whose artistic output spans a range of aesthetics, with each piece forming around a core question, musical object, or collaborative relationship. Jaz is finishing their PhD at Northwestern University.

    Goldilocks went upstairs. She lay down on the big bed and said, “This bed is too hard!” She lay on the medium bed and said, “This bed is too soft!” She lay down on the small bed and said, “This bed is just right.” She fell asleep.

  • Promenade imaginaire

    Anna Vriend

    Anna Vriend won third prize in the VIII International Composition Competition Opus Ignotum. Her works for bass clarinet solo and reed quintet respectively have been published by Alea Publishing. Several of her pieces for various instruments have been performed on Fifteen Minutes of Fame recently.

    This short piece describes a short leisurely walk.

  • Rut

    YU Zhuen

    YU Zhuen is a contemporary music composer currently studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China. His compositions are dedicated to exploring the possibilities of sound and combining philosophical thinking with emotional dramatic conflicts. He has won the first prize of the 19th SUN RIVER PRIZES (ISCM. Chairman of the jury Jo Kondo), honorable mention of the ICA composition competition, etc.

    This work is based on the multiple meanings of "rut" and expresses a response to the phenomenon that contemporary fast food culture erodes and overdraws the nation's future. Details in the score.