Founded in 2009, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet is “a sonically daring ensemble who specializes in performing new works with charisma and integrity” (BBC Music Magazine). Five reed players and entrepreneurs unbounded by limits or categorization, the quintet boasts a “collective voice driven by real excitement and a sense of adventure." (The Wire), and has graced the Classical Billboard Charts with each of their last three albums, including #2 in April, 2024. Winner of seven national chamber music prizes including the 2014 Fischoff Gold Medal, Akropolis is known for performing “works that brilliantly exploit their unique instrumentation” (Gramophone).
Composed of the same five members that brought about its founding at the University of Michigan, they are the first ensemble to receive the University's Paul M. Boylan Alumni Award. Akropolis delivers 120 concerts and educational events worldwide each year at luminary series including Tanglewood, Bravo! Vail, University Musical Society, Chamber Music Northwest, and more. Having premiered and commissioned more than 200 works by living artists and composers, they are pioneers and champions of a new genre of classical music—the reed quintet.
Akropolis became the first ever GRAMMY® winning reed quintet with their 2024 album, Are We Dreaming the Same Dream?, in collaboration with Pascal Le Boeuf and Christian Euman, taking home Best Instrumental Composition for the track "Strands" at the 67th Grammy Awards held in February, 2025. Live performances of Are We Dreaming the Same Dream? include University Musical Society, Chamber Music Corvallis at the PRAx Center, and the Williams Center for the Arts. Reflecting the influences of Geri Allen, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus and Leonard Bernstein (all of whom explored themes of American unity or disunity), the project probes the idea that diverse strands of experience, more than one unified “dream,” are what define America.
The quintet’s previous album, Hymns for Private Use (Bright Shiny Things, 2022) ranked in the top 10 on the Classical Billboard Charts, drawing glowing reviews from critics. Featuring works by Nico Muhly and Annika Socolofsky, plus collaborations with 7 small business owners, the album was praised by Textura for both its “resplendent” musical selections and the “exquisite playing” of the quintet.
Experimenters and creators at their core, the five artists of Akropolis are routinely lauded for their boldness and innovative spirit. As The Wire commented: “There’s nothing tentative in their approach, and that extends to their programming of multifariously challenging and imaginative new works.” Akropolis has collaborated with poets, a metal fabricator, dancers, small business owners, string quartets, pop vocalists, and others from all walks of life.
The quintet is also known for powerful collaborations with youth and others within its Detroit community. Certified as a 510(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Akropolis is the recipient of the 2015 Fischoff Educator Award, as well as eight grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The ensemble runs a Michigan-based summer festival called Together We Sound and an annual, school year-long music composition residencies at Cass Tech, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Detroit School of Arts high schools. Each year, Akropolis visits each high school around 20 times throughout the year, helping students compose new works which Akropolis premieres and records, publishing each work on YouTube. Since 2017, Akropolis has helped over 60 Detroit students write pieces of music.
Beginning in 2022 through a partnership with the Bay View Music Festival, the longest continuously operating chamber music festival in the United States, Akropolis runs a 10-day Chamber Music Institute focused on artist training and mentorship in Petoskey, MI. The Akropolis Chamber Music Institute (ACMI) welcomes 18 instrumentals and composers each summer to perform and record new works side-by-side with Akropolis, helping launch the careers of early career artists through mentorship and collaboration.
Described as “pure gold” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Akropolis Reed Quintet performs worldwide and is represented exclusively by Ariel Artists.
