Dave Wilson

Dave Wilson is a saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and a leading voice in the music community of Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. His music bridges avant-garde and experimental music with various groove-oriented styles from the worlds of jazz, R&B, electronic music, and more. With each of his albums – and each of his projects as a scholar, educator, and music community leader – he brings together new configurations of collaborators to extend ongoing creative conversations and unleash new ones. 

Dave grew up in the Chicago area before spending a decade in Los Angeles and several stints living in Skopje, North Macedonia. There, he released the album On the Face Place (2016) as part of the group CSPS Ensemble, which featured some of North Macedonia’s leading musicians performing Dave’s compositions. Since then, he has released In Passing (2017), a clarinet/bass clarinet and oud duo album with oud player Gabe Lavin, and SLANT (2019), a set of short-form structured improvisations with pianist Richard Valitutto.

For the last seven years he has been based in Aotearoa, where he developed the ensemble (and the material) for his newest album release, Ephemeral for quintet + string quartet, his debut as a leader. The scene in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, and Aotearoa more broadly, is brimming with accomplished instrumentalists and vocalists in improvised music related to jazz, electronic music, indie rock, experimental and new classical music, and more. On Ephemeral, Dave brings together a group of musicians with deep experience in a variety of these musical worlds, providing him – and the other players – with the widest range of aesthetic tools to sonically materialize the tight-knit bonds of Wellington’s music community.

Dave’s long-running work in nurturing musical collaborations is grounded in his conviction that musical interaction and listening built on trust, respect, gratitude, and generosity can infuse our communities with those same qualities. Ephemeral opens listeners’ ears to the sounds of those kinds of musical relationships, offering a glimpse into the possibilities of his musical vision.

Dave Wilson - Ephemeral
Quintet + String Quartet

Release date: Dec 1 2023

Dave Wilson - tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
Ben Hunt - trumpet
Callum Allardice - guitar
Chris Beernink - bass
Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa - drums

Amy Brookman - violin
Monique Lapins - violin
Nicholas Hancox - viola
Bennie Sneyd-Utting - cello