Dave Rempis

Life and career

Dave was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1975. He began his musical studies at the age of 8. In 1993, Rempis began a degree in classical saxophone at Northwestern University with Frederick Hemke. As part of his studies in anthropology, he spent a year at the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana in Legon, studying African music and ethnomusicology. After graduatind from Northwestern in 1997, Rempis decided to focus on performing, and in March of 1998 was asked to replace saxophonist Mars Williams in the Chicago jazz band The Vandermark Five, led by saxophonist Ken Vandermark.

During his tenure with The Vandermark Five, Rempis also began to develop many Chicago-based groups and cooperative units as Triage, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, Ballister and The Rempis/Daisy Duo. He recorded for labels such as Okka Disk, 482 Music, Clean Feed, Not Two, and Aerophonic, an artist-run label founded in the winter of 2013. His collaborations include a wide variety of creative improvised music legends, ranging from Peter Brötzmann and John Tchicai to Joe McPhee and Roscoe Mitchell.

Rempis also works as a presenter in the Chicago area. He has served as a curator for the Elastic Arts Foundation’s weekly concert series, helped establish the Umbrella Music collective and its annual music festival, worked as lead organizer of the Downtown Sound Gallery concert series at Gallery 37, and is also a key organizer of the yearly Pitchfork Music Festival.