About
Amos’ music has been heard on WFMT in Chicago, WQXR in New York City and PBS. His music spans a wide range of genres including chamber and orchestra concert music, jazz, as well as music for film, theater and dance. His music has been commissioned and performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Third Millennium Ensemble, Eclipse Theater, Barkada Saxophone Quartet, Kaia String Quartet, Access Contemporary Music (ACM) and the Chicago Composers Orchestra among many others.
As a saxophonist Amos performs with his own quartet – septet and has played along with the Hard Art Groop, Alvarez Orchestra, Origin of Animal, New Millennium Orchestra, Access Contemporary Music (ACM), Lake Shore Rush Ensemble, Chicago Composers Consortium, MAVerick ensemble, Jedlicka Performing Arts Center, VOX 3 Vocal Collective and Hiz Film studio Productions among others.
Amos’ music has been heard at various venues and Festivals around the world including The Ear Taxi Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Illinois Musicians Festival at Grant Park, North American Saxophone Alliance Conference, Preston Bradley Hall Sunday Salon Series, An Die Musik in Baltimore MD, Music Institute of Chicago, Court Theatre and the Green Mill among others.
Amos has received special recognition and finalist awards from ASCAP, League of Composers (ISCM), American Prize, Columbia Orchestra, the Macarthur Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council, and has won numerous grants including the 2013, 2016 IAS professional development grant through the Illinois Arts Council, a Lucerne fellowship through the Chicago sister cities program and the Swiss benevolent society, as well as the 2008 Evanston Cultural Arts Grant and several Chicago Community Arts Assistance Program Grants (CAAP).
He recently premiered “Unstructured Time” for jazz septet, about finding introspective peace in a loud world, live-streamed from the Fulton Street Collective Thursday, April 29th at 8PM. He’s working an an album release of this composition, you can sample the finalized tracks here: “Unstructured Time“
Also, recently he received a commission from Access Contemporary Music to write music inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Emil Bach house in Chicago, this will be featured in their new Architecture + Music YouTube series. Other recent commissions include one minute pieces for ACM’s neighborhood walkabout program; and a new work for the Gaudete Brass Quintet, to be premiered at the Ear Taxi Festival in the Fall of 2021.
Amos has taught music theory at Chicago State University and the Peoples Music School in Chicago. He currently teaches Theory and Ear Training at the University of Illinois Chicago and substitute teaches at Chi-Arts, Chicago’s Fine Arts High School. He has served on the board with New Music Chicago for three years and is an active contributing member with Access Contemporary Music. He received a Master’s degree in composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and a Bachelor’s degree in Saxophone performance from Northern Arizona University.
