Sam Alvarez (they/he) is a saxophonist, composer, and interdisciplinary artist. In all their work, Sam collects and works with sustained sounds, layered textures, and small artifacts of beauty to explore language, coherence, feelings of loss, and assorted ways to cling to meaning. Sam composes ensemble, chamber, and solo music, exploring idiomatic and harmonic treatments of extended techniques. Having commissioned and premiered over 25 works, Sam is an avid interpreter of contemporary repertoire, always striving to create and share new music. Sam’s creative work sits squarely between image, sound, and language, frequently twining together music, video art, and written poetry. Sam’s recent work for saxophone ensemble and video, “the tree stump is a verb,” will be premiered in Chicago in March 2025, and their coming solo set, “how to speak a foreign language,” (for solo saxophone and video), will be premiered in Geneva in June 2025. Originally from Austin, Texas, Sam is currently based in Geneva, Switzerland.