Kaleigh Wilder - Placemaking (2021)

Kaleigh Wilder (b. 1994) is a baritone saxophone improviser and sound sculptor based in Detroit, MI. Originally from Northwest Indiana, she moved to Michigan for graduate school where she then found refuge in Detroit’s music community. It is hard to place her music into a cut and dried genre, so Wilder likes to play from what she knows in her body—what her hands, ears, and inner child remember. Using timbral extremes that shift between raw and polished, abrasive and sensitive, discomfort and catharsis, Wilder channels her lived experiences into sound to communicate viscerally. She hopes to amplify in the listener their own understanding of music and Self.

Wilder had an affinity for music at a very young age. Her early musical explorations started through song and improvisation, but eventually Wilder began playing alto saxophone at 10 years old. She quickly realized saxophone was her authentic voice and the instrument in which she would pursue her career.

Wilder’s trajectory was mostly classical, but she played jazz throughout middle and high school. When she started at Ball State University in 2013, she planned on pursuing master and doctoral degrees in music to be eligible to teach saxophone at the college level. She was involved in both classical and jazz ensembles to diversify her education and eventually her employability. But when Wilder was a senior, her path of mostly classical training shifted.

Wilder ultimately attended the University of Michigan for graduate school where she received her masters degree in improvisation, which was within the Jazz & Contemporary Improvisation Department. It was during these two short years that Wilder returned to her childhood roots of improvisation and reimagined her voice to perform fully on baritone saxophone. While she seldom performed classical music during this time, she channeled all of her classical training on saxophone to let her voice flow effortlessly. She also had a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel to Ghana to do ethnographic fieldwork at the Dagara Music Center and with the AFRIMUDA Foundation. During her one month in Ghana, Wilder studied gyil, djembe, Ewe drums, and dance. The embodiment of Ghanaian music and dance still impacts her work today.

Following graduate school, Wilder moved to Detroit, MI where she performs as a freelance musician. She leads a baritone saxophone and drum duo that play her original compositions, their co-compositions, as well as free improvisations. They embody a melodic, rhythmic, and spacious sound, which they continuously discover and rediscover. Their process involves deeply engaged listening, discussion, and ample free play in order to create their music. She is also a member of Gnostikos, a quartet whose music ranges from strictly notated material to free improvisation, and utilizes techniques such as graphic notation, divination, and systems composition.

Wilder has shared the stage with notable musicians Marion Hayden, Ingrid Jensen, Ellen Rowe, and Allison Miller. She has performed throughout the United States and in Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Costa Rica and Ghana at notable venues and festivals such as the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Vertigo Jazz Club (Poland), the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music (Poland), Kerrytown Concert House (US), and Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall (US).