Soprano chair of the renowned PRISM Quartet and internationally-acclaimed soloist, TIMOTHY McALLISTER has been hailed as a “virtuoso…one of the foremost saxophonists of his generation” (The New York Times) known for “wondrous dexterity” (Gramophone Magazine) and a “beautifully rounded tone” (The Ann Arbor News). Since his solo debut at age sixteen with the Houston Civic Symphony, his career has taken him throughout the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, Mexico, France, Slovenia, Switzerland, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, garnering prizes at many prestigious national and international competitions, with solo performances in such venues as the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium, Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, City Hall Concert Hall in Hong Kong, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, Dallas’ Meyerson Center, and Rotterdam’s Zaal de Unie.

A dedicated teacher, McAllister is the newly-appointed Associate Professor of Saxophone at The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, following the legacies of Larry Teal and Donald Sinta, and held the same post at Northwestern University, succeeding the legendary Frederick Hemke, where he also served as Co-Director of the inaugural Institute for New Music from 2012-2014. Other faculty positions have included Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute School of Music, The University of Arizona School of Music, and SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music. He spends his summers as a distinguished Valade Fellow/Instructor of Saxophone for the Interlochen Center for the Arts (Michigan), and on the faculties of the Arosa (Switzerland) and Orford (Canada) summer academies. He has given clinics and recitals at many of the nation’s elite universities and conservatories, and in 2003, he was invited by French virtuoso Claude Delangle to serve as a Guest Professor at the famed Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris. In 2013, he was a co-founding faculty member of the annual American Saxophone Academy held at the Eastman School of Music, and he is the first American saxophonist to serve as an instructor at the European University for Saxophone in Gap, France in 2015.

He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and other degrees in music education, conducting and performance from The University of Michigan where he studied saxophone with Donald Sinta and conducting with H. Robert Reynolds. He is the only saxophonist to ever receive the School of Music’s most distinguished performance award—the Albert A. Stanley Medal. Alongside composer Derek Bermel, acclaimed countertenor David Daniels, tenor Nicholas Phan and New York Metropolitan Opera coach Howard Watkins, McAllister has been honored with the Paul C. Boylan Award from the Michigan School of Music Alumni Society for his significant contributions to the field of music.

Timothy McAllister is a Conn-Selmer artist, and plays Selmer (Paris) saxophones exclusively. He is also a Vandoren/DANSER Woodwind Artist, assisting with research and design, and endorses Vandoren saxophone reeds, ligatures, and mouthpieces.