About the Members

Kara Bancks has performed for a wide variety of audiences throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. A recent graduate of Eastman School of Music (M.M.), she has played with the Eastman Virtuosi, Eastman Philharmonia, Musica Nova, OSSIA New Music, the Rochester Philharmonic Woodwind Quintet, Concertante di Chicago, Elmhurst Symphony (acting principal) and many other ensembles throughout the Midwest and Upstate New York. Highlight performances include a 2005 concert in Carnegie Hall as a member of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and an upcoming festival at Conservatorio de las Rosas (Morelia, Mexico), where she will be featured in a special program of works by Eastman faculty composers. Her teachers have included Jon Manasse, Kenneth Grant, Robert DiLutis, Susan Warner and Charlene Zimmerman. An accomplished instructor in her own right, she is on the faculty of Wheaton College, the Chicago Academy for the Arts, and maintains a large studio of private students. Especially committed to the music of our time, she frequently commissions new works from emerging composers, and has participated in performances and workshops with composers such as Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Libby Larsen, and Louis Andreissen.

A Washington, D.C. native, Geoffrey Deibel is emerging as an important contemporary voice for the saxophone, approaching everything from standard orchestral works to avant-garde repertoire with certain intent--to bring the versatility of the saxophone to the widest audience possible. A graduate of Northwestern University, he holds a BM/MM in Saxophone Performance, and a BA in History. Principle teachers have included Frederick Hemke, Leo Saguiguit and Reginald Jackson. Mr. Deibel performs frequently with the New World Symphony and is a regularly featured guest soloist with the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble. He has given premier performances of works by composers Jesse Ronneau, D. Edward Davis, and Japanese composer Mari Takano. Mr. Deibel has been named a finalist at the Coleman and Chesapeake Chamber Music Competitions and has been a featured artist at the International Iannis Xenakis Festival, the North American Saxophone Alliance, the International Saxophone Symposium, the NU Music Marathon, and the World Saxophone Congress. He has taught saxophone and chamber music at Northwestern University's NHSI summer program, and has served on the faculties of music schools in the Chicago area. Deibel is currently a doctoral student at Michigan State University with saxophonist Joseph Lulloff.

Allison Ogden began working with computer music technology as a teenager. She quickly developed fluency in Csound and Max/MSP, as well as Scheme, C, C++, Perl, Java, Javascript and Html, building her own computer controlled musical instruments. She specializes in electro-acoustic interaction, multimedia compositions and installations, electronic improvisation and computer generated compositions. As well as working as an electro-acoustic computer music performer, producer and composer, she has also taught computer music at Northwestern University, Columbia College and the University of Chicago. As a composer, she has studied with such renowned artists such as Augusta Read Thomas, Joseph Schwantner, Christopher Rouse, Bernard Rands, and Samuel Adler. She is currently a PhD student in composition and computer music at The University of Chicago, where her composition teachers have included Shulamit Ran, Marta Ptaszynska, Howard Sandroff and Kotoka Suzuki. Her works have been performed in France, Poland, Spain, and across the US, with upcoming appearances scheduled at the University of Chicago, Roosevelt University and Northwestern University.