about me

Chris Pitsiokos  is a New York-born, Berlin-based saxophonist, composer and improviser. While Pitsiokos does not concern himself with genre, broadly speaking his music falls under the umbrella of experimentalism, including noise, sound art, improvised music, experimental jazz, free jazz, noise rock, new music, minimal music, drone and art rock. He has recorded over 30 albums as a leader or co-leader and appears on many others. 

As a bandleader and soloist, he has toured throughout Asia, North and South America and Europe. His touring has taken him to major international festivals such as Sapporo International Arts Festival in Japan, Moers Festival in Germany, Jazz Jantar in Poland, Jazz Festival Lima in Peru, Wels Unlimited Music Festival in Austria, Jazz Festival Saalfelden in Austria, Meteo Mulhouse Festival in France,  Jazz Cerkno in Slovenia, and the Observatory in Singapore, to name a small few among many. In New York, his music has been presented at Roulette Intermedium, ISSUE Project Room, and in a residency at the Stone. His writing has appeared in Arcana (edited by John Zorn), in a Japanese-language book on Kaoru Abe, and in many articles in the now defunct Sound American, where Pitsiokos was on the editorial board. He is known for his solo saxophone performance, his audio-visual electro-acoustic piece “Irrational Rhythms and Shifting Poles”, his band CP Unit and his longstanding duo with Otomo Yoshihide. He has also performed with Axel Dörner, Keiji Haino, Luke Stewart, Tony Buck, Wendy Eisenberg, Nate Wooley, Miya Masaoka, Paul Lytton, Peter Evans, Weasel Walter, Jaimie Branch, Chris Corsano, Oli Steidle, Elias Stemeseder, Kikanju Baku, Lorena Izquierdo and Tyshawn Sorey.

As an organizer, Pitsiokos presented concerts independently in New York from 2013 until 2022 when he relocated to Berlin. In Berlin he co-curated the program at Sowieso from 2022-2023 before starting a new venue, Richten25 and its parent-organization Odamusic e.V. in 2024 with a collective of six other artists.