Celebrating their 15th year as “a sonically daring ensemble who specializes in performing new works with charisma and integrity” (BBC Music Magazine) and a “collective voice driven by real excitement and a sense of adventure” (The Wire), Akropolis has “taken the chamber music world by storm” (Fanfare). As the first reed quintet to twice grace the Billboard Charts (2021, 2022), the untamed band of 5 reed players and entrepreneurs are united by a shared passion: to make music that sparks joy and wonder.

Winner of 7 national chamber music prizes including the 2014 Fischoff Gold Medal, Akropolis delivers 120 concerts and educational events each year and has premiered over 130 works. They are the first reed quintet to grace the luminary University Musical Society (UMS) stage and have appeared in Canada, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and in January 2024 will debut in the Netherlands under the auspices of USArtists International. 

“There's nothing tentative in [Akropolis’] approach, and that extends to their programming of multifariously challenging and imaginative new works” (The Wire). Akropolis’ 23-24 season will include world premieres by Derrick Skye and Stephanie Ann Boyd; performances of Are We Dreaming the Same Dream? with 2-time Grammy-nominated composer/pianist Pascal Le Boeuf and drummer Christian Euman;  imaginative renditions of music by Ravel and Gershwin; and the release of their 6th full length commercial album on the Bright Shiny Things label.

Winner of the 2015 Fischoff Educator Award and a nonprofit organization which has received 7 consecutive grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Akropolis runs a festival in Detroit called Together We Sound and an annual, yearlong residency at three public Detroit high schools.

The “pure gold” (San Francisco Chronicle) Akropolis Reed Quintet performs worldwide and is represented exclusively by Ariel Artists.

Kenji Bunch uses his work as a composer and performer to look for commonalities between musical traditions, for understandings that transcend cultural or generational barriers, and for empathic connections with his listeners. Mr. Bunch draws on vernacular musical traditions, his interest in history, the natural world, and his classical training to create new concert music with a unique personal vocabulary that appeals to performers, audiences, and critics alike. After nearly three decades as a professional musician, whose work has been performed by over sixty American orchestras, by chamber musicians on six continents, and has been recorded numerous times, he considers his mission to be the continuing search for and celebration of shared emotional truths about the human experience.

Mr. Bunch maintains an active performing career, and is widely recognized for performing his own groundbreaking works for viola. In the ongoing search for fluency in other musical styles, he developed a deep interest in vernacular American music and improvisation. Mr. Bunch was the fiddle player and vocalist with the band Citigrass for over 15 years, and is a frequent collaborator with jazz, pop, folk, country, rock, and experimental musicians. He has also collaborated extensively with choreographers and filmmakers.

A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Bunch left New York City after 22 memorable years to return to his native Portland, Oregon, where he currently serves as Artistic Director of new music group Fear No Music, and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic.