REPTET is a genre-blending Seattle-based sextet composed of drums, bass, and four horns. They play original compositions incorporating jazz, reggae, rock, ska, punk, modern classical, avant-garde, and eastern European folk music. These six multi-instrumentalists bring an arsenal of twenty-plus instruments to create a wide variety of textures and sounds. Their live performances, described as "arresting, compelling and just plain cranked-up," evolve into transformative performance art pieces utilizing costumes, storytelling, dance routines and absurdist humor. Constantly on the road, bringing their crazy antics all over the U.S. and abroad, they play in venues ranging from jazz festivals to rock clubs to theaters. The band also does customized educational programs for everything from grade schools to universities. Reptet has proven itself to be a unique and utterly enthralling multi-leveled experience that leaves audiences wanting more.
Composer/trumpeter Samantha Boshnack has been creating music of her own and performing with a plethora of musicians and groups in Seattle since 2003. She received her Bachelor of Arts in music from Bard College where she studied with Erica Lindsay and Joan Tower. She has also studied with Jerry Sabatini, Gregg Glassman, and Denney Goodhew. She is a trumpet player in high demand in a wide variety of genres including salsa/son, jazz/free jazz, rock/pop and Klezmer. In addition to conventional trumpet, Boshnack also plays flugelhorn, piccolo and slide trumpet. She has performed and recorded with Paul Rucker, Wayne Horvitz, The Dead Science, Eyvind Kang, Hans Teuber, Lori Goldston, Los Campesinos, Parenthetical Girls, among others. Current projects include Reptet, Picoso, WACO (Washington Composers Orchestra), Orkestar Zirkonium, Publish the Quest, Non Grata, Led to Sea, and The New Seattle Brass Ensemble. She will be debuting a new ensemble, The B'shnorkestra (an orchestra dedicated to playing her compositions) in 2011. She has received support for her compositions from 4Culture, Jack Straw Productions, ASCAPlus, and the Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs. She is also a music educator and is currently teaching trumpet and piano at many schools in the Seattle area.
Chris Credit - Saxophones, Clarinet, Flute
Chris Credit moved from Anchorage Alaska to Seattle to attend Cornish College of the Arts where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1998. There he studied with Hadley Caliman, Julian Priester, Chuck Deardorf, Jim Knapp, and Jovino Santos Neto among others. A stint of traveling and performing music aboard cruise ships kept Credit busy for awhile until he returned to Seattle to focus on composing, performing new music and teaching. In addition to performing on various woodwinds in Reptet, Credit also mixes reeds with electronics. In a project entitled Electric Oracle, Credit explores the possibilities of circuit bent instruments and saxophone loop pedals as comping instruments, creating textures and expanding soundscapes. He can also be found performing in other groups around the Seattle area including Tubaluba, Das Schwa, Motel 5, and the Rumptones.
Izaak Mills - saxophone, bass clarinet, flute, percussion, vocals.
Izaak Mills was born in the spring of 1980 in Olympia, WA; within months of the Mount Saint Helens eruption. Along with an undeniably explosive personality, Izaak brings to the table a musical energy that can be both sensitive and volatile with a taste for variety that ranges from Carribean to experimental, from punked out to hip hopped... his music and the music with which he is associated is always original and inventive. Give him an instrument and he will play it. Izaak has always loved music and began playing flute and viola when he was 7 years old. Jazz became his obsession and he spent his teens studying music with Nancy Curtis and the indefatigable progressive jazz genius Bert Wilson. In 1998 he moved to Seattle to study at Cornish College of the Arts where he stayed for two years studying with: Hadley Caliman, Jim Knapp, Paul Taub and Denny Goodhew to name a few. Since 2000, one can find Izaak everywhere and nowhere, touring the world, busking on the streets, talking loud and just plain making a ruckus. Based in Seattle, he is a regular member of Clinton Fearon and the Boogie Brown Band, Picoso, Publish the Quest, Floss and when vanity gets the best of him, his own group: Dead Hot. Music before money, love before... anything, Izaak will always follow his heart and urges all to follow suite.
Nelson Bell - tenor and bass trombones, euphonium, conch shells, tuba and sousaphone
Nelson graduated from the University of Washington school of music. He has been playing music in Seattle for the last 13 years, and has also performed throughout the United States, Canda, and Europe. He has worked with many different groups that perform many different styles of music, and has also been involved with many studio projects, movie and video game soundtracks, and musical theatre. Nelson is also currently a member of Tubaluba, and the Washington Compsers Orchestra, (WACO). He performs from time to time with Roadside Attraction, the Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, and has also performed or recorded with Diana Krall, Ben Vereen, the O Jays, Bernadette Peters, the Temptations, Barcelona, Parenthetical Girls, Sam Mickens, the Misery Love Company, Phil Kelly, Frank D'Rone, Eduardo Mendoca, and the Jim Knapp Orchestra.
Tim Carey - Bass
Tim grew up playing electric bass in beautiful Seabeck, WA. Tim attended Olympic College where he played for the award winning vocal jazz ensemble "Jazzline" as well as with Olympic College Jazz 1 under the direction of Rick White. While at OC Tim was able to tour the world and play with some of Kitsap County's most notable jazz musicians, including Gary Williams, Ray Ohls, Andy Omdhal, and Nancy King. After OC, Tim attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle Washington. While at Cornish Tim quickly became one of the first call electric bassists in the Seattle area as well as an accomplished acoustic bassist and guitarist. Tim Graduated with a BM from Cornish in May 2006. Tim is currently teaching bass, guitar, banjo, ukulele, and piano full time as well as performing in and around the Seattle area on a regular basis. Tim can also be heard with Jovino Santos-Neto Trio, the Jeff Busch Quintet, Pat Wright and the Total Experience Gospel Choir.
John Ewing - drums & occasional vocal chords
John grew up in the City of Brotherly Love - Philadelphia. As a child his family briefly moved to Los Angeles for three years where he started elementary school. Upon returning to the east coast, he spent a long, cold winter inhabiting a haunted house Atlantic City, NJ. His mom, a single mother of four, supported her family by working at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. While in middle school John became obsessed with drums. His brother, 9 years his senior, bought a drum set and watched as his kid brother took to them like a fish to water, quickly becoming the best drummer in the neighborhood. He learned his rudimental drumming from his high school band director, John Tumminia and was soon marching on football fields wearing a Grand Poobah hat, snare drum and chaps. He studied drums and classical percussion with Robert Brosh at Glasboro State College (now Rowan University) in South Jersey and John Bishop and James Zitro after moving to Seattle. Once in Seattle he began recording and touring with many regional funk, rock and reggae bands. He is the founding member of Reptet, who have been completely transformed since their inception back in 1999. He has played with legendary jazz trombonist Julian Priester and saxophonists Bert Wilson & Jessica Lurie. He hosts drum demonstrations for children and seniors as well as workshops/clinics at high schools and Universities as a member of Reptet. He is also a freelance writer, contributing features and reviews to many jazz centered publications and is a long standing member of the Jazz Journalist Association.