Andrew Gaffey

Andrew Gaffey is a saxophonist, educator, and contemporary music advocate from Pittsburgh, PA. His performances have taken him throughout the United States as a soloist and in ensembles, including appearances at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Florida State University New Music Festival, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, Eastern Illinois University, the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University, the National Museum of African American Music, the International Saxophone Symposium, North American Saxophone Alliance Conferences, and as soloist with the Illinois Wind Symphony. He toured the nation of Colombia with the Blair Big Band, with whom he won two Downbeat Awards, in support of their album Songbook. 

 

With a keen passion for the music of our time, Andrew is fueled by collaboration with composers and exploration of sound. He has premiered and commissioned works by numerous emerging and established composers including Emma Cardon, Matthew Howell, Stan Link, Noah Magnus, Madeline Merwin, Nicholas Townsend, and more. Dedicated to sharing the avant-garde with audiences of all types, Andrew founded the Copeland Trio, a saxophone, percussion, and piano trio while at Florida State University. This group is one of the first of its kind in the United States and abroad. He was a founding member of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at Vanderbilt University and performed with Polymorphia, the resident new music ensemble at Florida State University. He currently serves as saxophonist with the Illinois Modern Ensemble. He has also served as saxophonist with the Danville Symphony Orchestra, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. 

 

Presently, Andrew serves as Adjunct Instructor of Saxophone at Illinois Wesleyan University. He is pursuing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he serves as the saxophone studio teaching assistant and Assistant Director of the University of Illinois Saxophone Ensemble, and is a recipient of the prestigious University Fellowship. He holds the Master of Music Degree from Florida State University, where he served as a graduate assistant in the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement, and the Bachelor of Music in Performance from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, where he was the recipient of the L. Howard ‘Zeke’ Nicar Award, given to the most outstanding woodwind student at the Blair School of Music. He has completed additional study at the American Saxophone Academy and the Cortona Sessions for New Music. His teachers include Nicki Roman, Debra Richtmeyer, Geoffrey Deibel, Brian Utley, and Jeff Coffin. In his free time, he can be found drinking coffee or birding, and sometimes both.