Saxophonist and Ethno/musicologist Adrianne Honnold is an Assistant Professor of Music at Lewis University in the suburbs of Chicago, where she teaches music history, popular music studies, and applied saxophone, and serves as the Associate Director of the Gros Institute for Dialogue, Justice, and Social Action. She currently serves as the Coordinating Editor of Reviews for The Saxophone Symposium, and is a co-editor/contributing author of The Legacy of Elise Hall: Contemporary Perspectives on Gender and the Saxophone, published by Leuven University Press/Cornell University Press. She completed the PhD in Ethnomusicology (Popular Music Studies) at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, and received her Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music in Saxophone Performance degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she studied with Debra Richtmeyer and Chip McNeill.

RESEARCH & SCHOLARLY ACTIVITIES
Honnold researches the implications of gender and race on instrumental performance. Her interests include the sociology of music/popular music, music and identity, critical organology, American music and musicians, saxophone performance and history, and the popular music industry.

She co-edited a book entitled The Legacy of Elise Hall: Contemporary Perspectives on Gender and the Saxophone published in 2024 with Dr. Kurt Bertels of the Royal Conservatory Brussels, Belgium. She recently contributed an essay entitled “Aesthetic Abjection: Kenny G from the Saxophonists’ Perspective” to the “Revisiting Kenny G Colloquy” published in the Journal of Jazz Studies in May 2023. In July 2021 Honnold was named a College Music Society/NAMM GenNext Fellow, and was awarded a grant to attend Summer NAMM in Nashville, TN. As a result of this conference, she participates as a member of a CMS committee that is working to develop a nationally-recognized certificate program in music industry studies. She has presented papers at conferences hosted by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), the American Musicological Society (AMS), and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE). Additionally, she has presented papers at Canterbury Christ Church University (UK), Case Western Reserve University, the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and the University of Aberdeen (Scotland).

Future research projects include a book about African American women saxophonists in the early part of the twentieth century, a book about the saxophone and its connotations in contemporary popular music, investigations of agency + women in pop music (Madonna, Doechii, St. Vincent), and other inquiries related to gender, race, and performance.

TEACHING & SERVICE
Dr. Honnold champions representation and inclusivity initiatives in her teaching, research, and service endeavors. She developed a new course—Sex, Race, and Power in Pop Music—which invites students to investigate the nature of the relationship between music and identity in contemporary pop music. She began her teaching career in higher education in 2005, and has taught the History of Rock Music, American Popular Music, Western classical from 1750 to present, and Music Appreciation as well as applied saxophone at Maryville University, Texas A&M University San Antonio, St. Louis Community College, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she also conducted the Jazz Lab Band and coached chamber ensembles. Dr. Honnold’s saxophone students are members of military bands, have received scholarships to study music and pursue graduate degrees at some of the top music schools in the United States and abroad, and have been selected as members of All-State and All-Collegiate ensembles in Illinois, Missouri, and Texas. She has presented master classes at several high schools around the country as well as at the University of Missouri, Southeast Missouri State University, University of Texas at Austin, and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and has also presented clinics at the Missouri Music Educators Association annual conference. From 2015 to 2019 she taught private saxophone lessons near her home in Braine-Le-Comte, Belgium. From 2019-2021 she taught several weekly master classes and maintained a thriving private saxophone studio in the San Antonio area, working with some of the top young musicians in the state of Texas.

A lifelong goal is to present to students both historical and contemporary examples of people and musics that represent a broad range of cultures, and this approach is rooted in a commitment to implementing anti-racist pedagogies and prioritizing representation and inclusion initiatives both within and outside the classroom. Honnold’s work as the Associate Director of the Gros Institute for Dialogue, Justice, and Social Action, Restorative Justice Council, and Social Justice Alliance at Lewis University are active and tangible demonstrations of a commitment to fostering justice and peace on campus and in the local community.

PERFORMANCES
Honnold has enjoyed an extensive and multifaceted performing career across the United States and Europe, and has performed with award winning artists Arturo Sandoval, Kristen Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Ben Folds, the New York Voices, Eddie Daniels, Bob Mintzer, Clark Terry, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jon Faddis, John Fedchock, and the Miracles, and has performed in master classes with Jean-Marie Londeix, Eugene Rousseau, and Griffin Campbell. A former member of the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band and Rhythm in Blue Jazz Ensemble located at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, she was the principal saxophonist in the concert band and was a featured concerto soloist three times. Honnold performs regularly with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) since 2004, working with conductors such as David Robertson, Leonard Slatkin, and Marin Alsop. She performed with the orchestra on their European tour in 2012 at the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, the Philharmonie in Berlin, and the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Additionally, she has performed several times with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the SLSO including only the second staging of John Adams’ Nixon in China, the world premiere of Peter Ash’s The Golden Ticket in 2010, and the world premiere of 27 by Ricky Ian Gordon in 2014. She has also performed with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera Kansas City, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the USAF Band of Mid-America, the Sessions Big Band, the St. Louis Jazz Orchestra, the NATO Jazz Orchestra, and the Pete Ellman Big Band. An avid chamber musician, she is a former member of the Missouri Saxophone Quartet and founding member and former co-Artistic Director of Chamber Project St. Louis (2007-2015).

SAXOPHONE CONFERENCES
A member of the North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) since 1994, she has been a featured performer and lecturer at various biennial and regional NASA conferences as well as the World Saxophone Congresses in St. Andrews, Scotland, Strasbourg, France, and Zagreb, Croatia. She has commissioned and premiered several works, including an award-winning work for baritone saxophone and percussion at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Indianapolis in 2014.

RECORDINGS
She appears on eleven commercially-released recordings with the USAF Heritage of America Band, Get Here Sooner with the University of Illinois Concert Jazz Band, "27" with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis/St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and an album of previously unpublished works for saxophone ensemble by Percy Grainger, edited and published by Joyce Griggs.

ENDORSEMENTS
She is an Artist-endorser for the Conn-Selmer Corporation and is proud to perform on Selmer Paris and Yanagisawa saxophones exclusively. 
Click here for more info.

She is proud to be a founding member and former Artistic Director of Chamber Project St. Louis. 

After living in Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Belgium, and Texas, Dr. Honnold recently moved to back to Illinois with her husband Derek and their dogs Bob and Izzy.

• The Times of London called the St. Louis Symphony’s Proms performance “magnificent” and found it to be full of “unconfined joy.”

• The Guardian noted the (St. Louis) Symphony played Gershwin's An American in Paris “with bags of style and just the right mix of wonder and sleaze. The encore was…jaw-droppingly virtuosic and terrific fun.”