Kasey Knudsen
Kasey Knudsen is a San Francisco based saxophonist, composer & educator. She earned her BA in Jazz Composition from Berklee College of Music in 2001. While at Berklee, Knudsen was a featured composer for the Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra & the Joanne Langione Dance Company. Since relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, Knudsen has been commissioned by the Jazzschool's 2005 Emerging Artist Series to write and perform new work; In 2007, she was commissioned by Intersection For The Arts in collaboration with the De Young Museum to write & perform a piece inspired by the work of visual artist Deborah Oropallo. She leads the KK Group, a septet focusing on original music and arrangements; she co-leads The Permanent Wave Ensemble, an octet dedicated to performing and arranging the music of Carla Bley; The RW3 Trio along with bay area drummer Jon Arkin, and The Holly Martins with vocalist Lorin Benedict and guitarist Eric Vogler.
Knudsen can be seen performing with a number of ensembles and bandleaders including Evan Francis and Spaceheater, Tune-Yards, Lisa Mezzacappa, Ted-Brinkley's Horn Blower Cruise Ship, Graham Connah, Nathan Clevenger, Aaron Novik's Thorny Brocky, pianist Jarrett Cherner, Michael Coleman's Schumann's Humanns, the Bay Area Composer's Collective Orchestra, guitarist Q Morrow, Rob Ewing's Disappear Incompletely and more. She has played with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Realistic Orchestra, The Slip, Joe Bagale & the Dirty Workshop, Adam Shulman Group, The Industrial Jazz Group, Brass Bows & Beats, Terrence Brewer, Rova Saxophone Quartet's Sax Cloud, & many others. Knudsen has performed at Yoshi's, Pearl's, The Great American Music Hall, Cafe Du Nord, Anna's Jazz Island, The Independent, The Fillmore, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Red Poppy Art House, Intersection for the Arts, Kuumbwa, The Jazzschool, SFJazz Fest, San Jose Jazz Fest, North Beach Jazz Fest and New York venues Local 269, Barbes and Cafe Vivaldi. Knudsen was a faculty member of the 2010 Stanford Jazz Workshop and the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley; she has served as a judge and clinician at the Reno Jazz Festival and currently teaches for The Jazzschool in Berkeley, CA.