Born in Ithaca, New York in 1981, Chris moved to Oxford, Ohio at the age of two. He was very interested in music from an early age, memorizing all of the children's songs from the many music books that his mother had lying around, and often taking advantage of said songs to lull himself to sleep. He started studying classical piano at around 5 or 6 years of age, and continued those studies until the age of 16.
When he was in fifth grade, he wanted to play the double-bass, but his school probably didn't have the resources to provide for a whole bunch of kids to play that expensive-type instrument, so they told him that his hands were too small, thrust an alto saxophone into his arms and he hasn't been able to put the damn thing down since then. (actually, since the first horn, he has gone through a number of instruments, consistently increasing in quality from the original as time went by.) A year spent in Japan shortly after this life-changing decision on behalf of the school music department also happened to place him in a rather rigorous curriculum of recorder study, and he enjoys playing the instrument to this day.
In high school, Chris developed an interest in many different kinds of music, particularly the jazz music of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Wayne Shorter, and Eric Dolphy. Also among his early aural lovers were The Beach Boys, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, and a whole slew of experimental electronic musics including Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Einsturzende Neubauten, Autechre, Aphex Twin, Meat Beat Manifesto, Coldcut, and Nurse With Wound. During this time he was studying with one of the great local (i.e. Cincinnati-Dayton) saxophonists, Hal Melia. He owes much of what he knows about the saxophone to this amazing man. He played in the Talawanda High School Marching Band and the Talawanda High School Jazz Band, traveling to both London and Maastricht, Netherlands with the ensembles. He also played in the regional and All-State Jazz Bands. He played lead alto sax in the Miami University Jazz Ensemble under the direction of James Bunte. In addition to this, he toured France, Germany, Italy and Denmark with the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Jazz Band as lead alto sax.
After graduating from high school, Chris quickly packed up and left to attend the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. These were incredibly fertile, formulative years for his ideas dealing with life and music. He became interested in free improvisation and in more conceptual, associative approaches to jazz and improvisation, particularly in the idea of spontaneous group composition. The list of amazing musicians slash people that influenced his life and music during these years would be nigh-impossible to tabulate, but many of them will be found in the links section of this website. Among the many projects that he thrust himself into were the bands Magnolia, iSTH, Dialects, Luciferin, and Electric Medicine.
After three years of school, Chris and the Eastman School of Music went through a mutual breakup of sorts, with the details best left in the dust, and he ventured out on his own. He had a brief but interesting stint touring with the jam/klezmer band Hypnotic Clambake. He recorded an album doing lead vocals and saxophone with the band Luciferin, featuring the music of composer Morgan Staples. The album should be available some time in early 2005. He continued to perform with the improvising ensemble Dialects, of which he was a co-founder, producing a long string of live recordings. The band went into the studio in March of 2005, and an album should be available within the next year. He also started his own group, tatYana, a highly energetic noise/deep groove/improv ensemble. tatYana and alter-ego band Coksisterz continue to perform regularly in Rochester. In addition, Chris makes regular appearances as part of Gaybot, a theatrical noise improv outlet headed by Brian Blatt (a.k.a. Colonel Parmesan).