Sophia Kickhofel

Sophia Kickhofel is an alto saxophonist and composer based in New York City, where she leads her own quartet at clubs including Smalls and Ornithology and works as a sideman around the city. A native of Apple Valley, Minnesota, she began on classical saxophone at ten and turned to jazz at thirteen, coming up through the NYO Jazz program and earning a YoungArts finalist award and the Irv Williams Fellowship. She studied jazz performance at the Juilliard School with saxophonists Bruce Williams and Dan Block and pianist Marc Cary. Her playing has taken her to Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, and Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai, and she has shared stages with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Sean Jones. She frames her music around building a sense of empathy and community with an audience.