Soprano chair of the renowned PRISM Saxophone Quartet and acclaimed soloist, Timothy McAllister has emerged as one of today's premier concert saxophone performers and teachers. Since his solo debut at age sixteen with the Houston Civic Symphony, his career has taken him throughout the U.S., Canada, South America and Europe, garnering prizes at many prestigious national and international competitions, and presenting recitals in such venues as Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium, Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Boston's Pickman Hall, the Krannert Center and Rotterdam’s Zaal de Unie.

McAllister’s critically acclaimed, internationally released recordings can be heard on the Einstein, Naxos, innova, Albany, Equilibrium, Centaur, G.I.A. Publications and Arizona University Recordings labels. Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press has recognized his albums as among the top classical saxophone recordings, and his recording of Pulitzer-Prize winning composer William Bolcom's Concert Suite for Alto Saxophone and Band received first-round 2001 Grammy Award nominations in three major categories.

McAllister has premiered over 100 new works by emerging and recognized composers ranging from solo compositions by Gunther Schuller, Caleb Burhans, Jennifer Higdon, Benjamin Broening, Kati Agocs, Mischa Zupko, Andrew Mead, Gregory Wanamaker, Roshanne Etezady, Kristin Kuster to saxophone quartets and chamber works by Steven Mackey, Lee Hyla, Libby Larsen, William Bolcom, John Harbison, John Anthony Lennon, Brian Fennelly, Evan Chambers, Stephen Rush, Zack Browning among others.

He has appeared with chamber groups such as QUORUM, the Minimum Security Composers Collective Ensemble, Duo 45th Parallel, Trio 20:21, Composers Ensemble of Northern New York, NUMA, Brave New Works, the Ariel Web (with dancer/choreographer Peter Sparling) and the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings. He has performed in concert with acclaimed pianists Christopher Taylor, Kevin Class, Midori Koga, Lucia Unrau, Winston Choi, Stephen Buck, Eugenia Tsarov and Kathryn Goodson. His performances with orchestra include the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, the Hot Springs Festival Orchestra, Texas Festival Orchestra at Round Top, Houston Civic Symphony, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Albany Symphony/Dogs of Desire Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of Northern New York, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble.

He was the featured soloist for the University of Michigan Symphony Band Centennial Anniversary Tour in 1997, and was invited by Michael Tilson Thomas to perform as saxophonist with the New World Symphony in 2000 resulting in over a dozen concerts, including rare North American performances of Giacinto Scelsi's I presagi. As the soprano chair of the Ninth Circle Saxophone Quartet, he won the 2001 Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

As a member of the PRISM Quartet, concerto engagements have included the Columbus Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Ocean City Pops (NJ), Augusta Symphony, and the Nashville Symphony among others. He has been featured soloist at the national/international conferences of SEAMUS, the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial meetings, the Potsdam Single Reed Summit, the New England Saxophone Symposium, and the U.S Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium. Additionally, he was a featured soloist with the Royal Belgian Air Force Band at the XIII World Saxophone Congress in Minneapolis.

As a jazz and commercial musician, he has performed with notable big bands, and in many regional music theater and studio orchestra touring productions, having appeared with numerous entertainers including Broadway icon Patti LuPone. He has also performed behind such jazz artists as saxophonists Jimmy Heath, Rick Margitza, Dave Liebman and trumpeteer Ed Sarath. Since joining PRISM, he has premiered several jazz compositions by composer/performers Greg Osby, Tim Ries, Matt Levy, Tim Berne, and has collaborated with guitarist/composer Ben Monder and drummer Anthony Pinciotti.

McAllister is the newly-appointed Associate Professor of Saxophone at the Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University beginning Fall 2008. He previously served on the faculties of The University of Arizona School of Music, and SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music, and spends his summers as artist/faculty of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Hot Springs Music Festival, and the Fox River (WI) Chamber Music Festival. He has given clinics and recitals at many of the nation's elite universities and conservatories, and has been a visiting instructor and sabbatical replacement for Donald Sinta at The University of Michigan. In 2003, he was invited by French virtuoso Claude Delangle to serve as a Guest Professor at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, and also served as visting instructor for Jean-Pierre Baraglioli's class at the Conservatoire de Montreuil (Paris).

He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and other degrees in music education, conducting and performance from The University of Michigan where he studied saxophone with Donald Sinta and conducting with H. Robert Reynolds. He is the only saxophonist to ever receive the School of Music's most distinguished performance award, the Albert A. Stanley Medal. Alongside composer Derek Bermel, acclaimed countertenor David Daniels and New York Metropolitan Opera coach Howard Watkins, McAllister has been honored with the Paul C. Boylan Award from the Michigan School of Music Alumni Society for his significant contributions to the field of music.

Highlights of McAllister’s 2006-2007 season includes solo and chamber music appearances in Toronto, Tucson, Baltimore, Hartford, Albany, Philadelphia and New York City; as well as new recordings on the AUR, Summit and Naxos labels, and the premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s “Concerto for Soprano Saxophone” under the baton of Marin Alsop at the 2007 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, CA. Albany Records will release his world premiere recording of Daniel McCarthy's "Towers of Power": Chamber Symphony No. 4 for saxophones and winds with the University of Arizona Wind Ensemble in the spring of 2008. During the summer of 2008, he will perform concerti by Higdon and Etezady with the Texas Festival Orchestra at the Round Top Festival-Institute (TX), and will record John Adams' Nixon in China with Opera Colorado conducted by Marin Alsop. He was also selected as a featured soloist for the Opening Gala concert of the 2008 NASA Biennial Conference with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, Donald Portnoy, conductor.

Timothy McAllister is a Conn-Selmer artist, and plays Selmer (Paris) saxophones exclusively. He is also a RICO Gold Artist, assisting with research and design for the D'Addario Co, and endorses the RICO Reserve saxophone reeds.