Red Clay Saxophone Quartet

The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet was formed in 2003 in North Carolina when the fates conspired to bring four internationally recognized saxophonists together in Greensboro. The RCSQ takes its name from the area's luscious red soil. The Quartet's repertoire features music by composers as varied as Ben Johnston, Burton Beerman, Mark Engebretson, Lenny Pickett, Alejandro Rutty, Ben Boone, Steve Reich and Gavin Bryars. Susan Fancher has 15 years of experience as soprano saxophonist with the Vienna, Amherst and Rollin' Phones saxophone quartets, and is now on the faculty of Duke University. Robert Faub has performed extensively throughout the US and Europe as alto saxophonist with the New Century Saxophone Quartet. Steven 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.

Susan Fancher's 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. Her extensive discography includes a solo CD entitled Ponder Nothing 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, and teaches saxophone at Duke University.

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 the 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 is the Director of Bands at Caldwell Academy in Greensboro, NC. He also shepherds an accomplished studio of young private students, plays extensively with local jazz combos and appears regularly with the North Carolina, Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphonies.

Steven Stusek is Assistant 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 the 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.