Wild Up

Called “a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant…fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family” (The New York Times), Wild Up has been lauded as one of new music’s most exciting groups by virtually every significant institution and critic within earshot. Artistic Director Christopher Rountree started the orchestral collective in 2010 to eschew outdated concert traditions by experimenting with different methodologies, approaches, and contexts.

After a decade and a half of rampant creativity and curiosity Wild Up is an ambassador of West Coast music. The group has collaborated with a wide range of composers, performers, and cultural institutions, premiering and creating hundreds of new works. They accompanied Björk at Goldenvoice’s FYF Fest, sung into a Picasso with Pamela Z at LACMA, and created Democracy Sessions—playing against growing autocracy with Raven Chacon, Ted Hearne, Chana Porter, Ursula K. LeGuin, Harmony Holiday, Saul Williams, and Karlheinz Stockhausen at MOCA. They premiered David Lang and Mark Dion’s anatomy theater at LA Opera, often collaborated with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and performed scores for Under the Skin by Mica Levi and Punch-Drunk Love by Jon Brion at the Regent Theater and Ace Hotel. They were booed out of Toronto for playing a piece too quietly. Wild Up premiered a new opera by Julia Holter at National Sawdust, debuted an avant-pop work by Scott Walker at Walt Disney Concert Hall, sustained 12 hours of Ragnar Kjartansson’s Bliss at REDCAT, and championed Julius Eastman’s music worldwide. They blared a noise concert as a fanfare for the groundbreaking of Frank Gehry’s building on Grand Avenue and First Street. The group has been lavished with praise by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, Pitchfork, and many more publications and critics.

Their decade-long, critically acclaimed, multi-Grammy nominated Julius Eastman Anthology has been celebrated as “a masterpiece” (The New York Times), “instantly recognizable” (Vogue), and “singularly jubilant…a bit in your face, sometimes capricious, and always surprising” by NPR, which named the anthology’s first installment, Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine, among its top 10 records of 2021 in all genres.