Maxx Katz
Credits: Courtesy of Maxx Katz

Maxx Katz

Maxx Katz is a composer, musician, and performance maker based in Portland, OR, whose work draws on vocabulary from free improvisation, performance art, jazz, contemporary classical, and heavy metal. A classically trained flutist with an MA in Music from the University of Virginia, Katz uses flute, electric guitar, voice, and movement as instruments of radical transformation. 

They have toured extensively across the US, Europe, and Canada as part of various collaborative and solo projects. Katz was a resident at the 2019 Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey, and Atlantic Center for the Arts with flutist Nicole Mitchell. They compose work for ongoing ensembles including Yelling Choir and Floom.

Katz has been commissioned by the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble and the 2024 Oregon Contemporary Artists' Biennial, and has created work in collaboration with musicians and dancers including Tyshawn Sorey, Linda Austin, Tahni Holt and Muffie Delgado-Connelly, John Niekrasz, Julian Otis, lauren jean crow, and Eddie Bond.

Their Yelling Choir project has debuted compositions at the 2024 Oregon Contemporary Artists' Biennial, the American Choral Directors Association Northwest Conference, Congress Yard Projects, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and ACRE Residency. They have led Yelling Choir workshops at Banff and ACRE as well as Portland State University, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education teen and young adult meditation retreats, and Portland Public Schools.

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