Wills Mckenna is a saxophonist, flutist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Chicago, IL. He has played in a wide range of projects, from straight-ahead jazz to improvised music to rock oriented groups. He is a member of Wills Mckenna's Path Ensemble, Undisclosed Sims, Je’raf, Bison Bison, the Maxx Hunter Mcgathey Orchestra, Gramps The Vamp, and has played with singer-songwriter V.V Lightbody. His current project Undisclosed Sims, an electric jazz-rock and improvised group with Luke Polipnick on guitar, Adam Shead on drums, and Andrew Scott Young on electric bass, has toured around the mid-west and has played music festivals in Madison, WI. Wills' other new and exciting project, the Path Ensemble, is a group consisting of violin, cello, bass, drums and keyboard that plays Wills' original music based on a classical-jazz and ambient chamber music aesthetic that draws heavily from the works of neo-classical composers including Olafur Arnalds, Johan Johannsson, and Max Richter in addition to improvisational jazz.
A former student at both the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY and the New England Conservatory in Boston, MA, Wills brings his technical prowess on his instruments into every musical situation and explores the intersection between free flowing stream of consciousness playing and melodic restraint. Wills' approach to music composition is rooted as much in contemporary jazz and classical idioms as in the highly emotive and sonically complex world of rock and ambient music.