Praised for his "formidable technique" and "enviable uniformity of tone" by The Saxophone Symposium, Jeffery Kyle Hutchins is a concert saxophonist, chamber musician, improviser, and performance artist who focuses on the creation and promotion of contemporary music and interdisciplinary media. His work emphasizes close collaboration with composers and artists to create adventurous programming, often incorporating the body, the voice, the instrument, technology, and space. He has performed concerts in Asia, Europe, and North America and premiered more than seventy new works.
His performances have been broadcast on Fresh Ink hosted by Neva Pilgrim on WCNYFM (New York) and Nova hosted by Bernard Clarke on Raidió Teilifís Éireann lyric fm (Ireland). He performs regularly on stages for contemporary and experimental music, including Ars Electroacoustica, Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Electroacoustic Barndance, MNmade, Music Now, New Horizons Music Festival, New Ruckus, New York City Electronic Music Festival, Northern Spark, Punk Ass Classical, Skewed Vision, Zeitgeist New Music Cabaret, as well as the Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, North American Saxophone Alliance Conference, and the World Saxophone Congress. He has recorded for numerous record labels including Avid Sound Records, Emeritus Records, GIA Publications, Farpoint Recordings, and Klavier Records.
Hutchins is the saxophonist of 113 (One-Thirteen), a collective of composers and performers who curate concerts, seminars and master classes throughout the Midwest. He has premiered over a dozen new works with the group and has worked closely with composers Chaya Czernowin, James Dillon, and Michael Pisaro as well as presenting continental premieres of works by Hans-Joachim Hespos and Volker Heyn. Hutchins is also a member of the laptop and woodwind improv duo Binary Canary with Ted Moore, whose first album click/blow was hailed as a "full on noise-jazz symphony" (Raised by Gypsies) and "well worth the listen" (Signals for Images). He is also a member of AVIDduo, the Strains New Music Ensemble, and regularly performs with the Renegade Ensemble. Hutchins' radical approach to presenting programs of contemporary work have lead him to perform many non-saxophone works, such as performances of Kurt Schwitter's dada sound-poem Ursonate, Samuel Becket's Krapp's Last Tape, Simon Steen Andersen's Difficulties Putting It Into Practice, and art performances at Gamut Gallery, the Nash Art Gallery, and the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture, among others.
As a devoted educator and pedagogue, Hutchins has held residencies and taught master classes at universities across the country. He has given clinics and presentations at the Iowa, Minnesota, and Texas Music Educators' Association Conference, and the Association for Technology in Music Instruction and College Music Society Conference. He has formerly taught on the faculties of Bemidji State University and the University of Northern Iowa, and the E. Rousseau Workshop at Shell Lake.
In 2015, Hutchins received the Doctor of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, where he studied with Eugene Rousseau (also 2013, MM). There he was a recipient of the prestigious Berneking Fellowship and served as Instructor of Saxophone. His previous teachers are Eric Nestler (2011, BM University of North Texas).
Hutchins is Artist/Teacher of Saxophone at Virginia Tech and directs the Virginia Tech Jazz Lab Band.
He is a Yamaha Performing Artist and plays on Yamaha Custom saxophones, E. Rousseau mouthpieces, and Légère reeds.
