Red Clay Saxophone Quartet

Susan Fancher-soprano, Robert Faub-alto
Steve Stusek-tenor, Mark Engebretson-baritone
The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet is a professional chamber music ensemble formed in October 2003 by four internationally recognized saxophonists. Susan Fancher has 15 years of experience as soprano saxophonist with the Vienna, Amherst and Rollin' Phones saxophone quartets. Robert Faub has performed extensively throughout the US and Europe as alto saxophonist with the New Century Saxophone Quartet. Steve Stusek, saxophone professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, is an international touring solo recitalist and chamber musician. Mark Engebretson is a veteran of the Vienna Saxophone Quartet and is Assistant Professor of Music Composition at UNCG. The RCSQ's repertoire includes original works for saxophone quartet by Alexander Glazunov, Michael Torke, Ben Johnston, Terry Riley, M. William Karlins and Perry Goldstein, and transcriptions for saxophone quartet of music by Steve Reich and Francis Poulenc. All the Red Clay Quartet members playVandoren Optimum mouthpieces.
Susan Fancher's tireless efforts to develop the repertoire for the saxophone have produced dozens of commissioned works by contemporary composers, as well as published transcriptions of music by composers as diverse as Josquin Desprez, Ben Johnston and Steve Reich. She has worked with a multitude of composers in the creation and interpretation of new music including Terry Riley, Michael Torke and Charles Wuorinen, just to name a few, and has performed in many of the world's leading concert venues and contemporary music festivals. The most recent additions to her discography are a solo CD entitled Ponder Nothin on the Innova label and a recording on New World Records of Forever Escher by Paul Chihara. Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the nationally distributed Saxophone Journal. Her principal teachers were Frederick Hemke, Jean-Marie Londeix, Michael Grammatico and Joe Daley. She is a clinician for the Selmer and Vandoren companies.

Robert Faub is an accomplished classical soloist, chamber musician and jazz artist. He was formerly the alto saxophonist with the widely acclaimed New Century Saxophone Quartet, with whom he performed extensively throughout the United States and in teh Netherlands. He appears on New Century's recordings A New Century Christmas and Standards. As a soloist, he gave the first performance of Ben Boone's concerto Squeeze with the University of South Carolina Symphony, adding to a long list of works he has premiered. His recording of Andrew Simpson's Exhortation, included on Arizona University Recording's America's Millenial Tribute to Adolphe Sax, was "immaculately played," according to The Double Bassist magazine. Robert Faub appears regularly with the North Carolina, Greensboro adn Winston-Salem Symphonies.

Steve Stusek is Associate Professor of Saxophone at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He performs frequently with Dutch accordion player Otine van Erp in the duo 2Track, was director of Big Band Utrecht and is a founding member of the Bozza Mansion Project, an Amsterdam-based new music ensemble. The list of composers who have written music for him include Academy Award winner John Addison. His many awards include a Medaille d'Or in Saxophone Performance from teh Conservatoire de la Région de Paris, winner of the Saxohone Concerto competition at Indiana University, Semi-finalist in the Concert Artists Guild Competition, Vermont Council on the Arts prize for Artistic Excellence, and Finalist in the Nederlands Impressariaat Concours for ensembles. His teachers include Daniel Deffayet, Jean-Yves Formeau, Eugene Rousseau, David Baker, Joseph Wytko and Larry Teal.

Mark Engebretson is Assistant Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A former resident of Vienna and Stockholm, he has received numerous commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Culture, STIM (Sweden) and the American Composers Forum Commissioning Program. His Duo Concertante was recently premiered by the Wroclaw (Poland) Philharmonic. Mark Engebretson has appeared twice as a concerto soloist with the Brno (Czech) Philharmonic Orchestra. He is well represented as a composer and performer on the Innova label and has performed with Klangforum Wien, Swedish percussionist Anders Åstrand and the Intergalactic Contemporary Music Ensemble. His principle teachers were Michel Fuste-Lambezat, Frederick Hemke, Jean-Marie Londeix, M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim.