Family and friends of Tim Gocklin like to play a game called “Where is Tim today?”

Gocklin is an adjunct and an artist-in-residence faculty member at the University of Northern Colorado School of Music.

His family and friends knew the answer to their question on Feb. 2.

Gocklin was in Los Angeles, sitting among a sea of celebrities at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. He was holding his phone while filming Wayne Brady as he announced who the Grammy would go to for Best Instrumental Composition.

Brady opened the envelope, gazed at it momentarily, then said, “Strands.”

“I practically threw my phone down in disbelief, in shock, in excitement and joy, and all of different emotions just happening all at the same time,” Gocklin said. “It was just so surreal.”

Gocklin is the oboist in the Akropolis Reed Quintet, and “Strands” is a song in the quintet’s project “Are We Dreaming the Same Dream.”

Pascal Le Boeuf composed the song. Le Boeuf received the Grammy and spoke during the acceptance speech as Gocklin and the other members of Akropolis celebrated on stage.

Gocklin said the reality of their win hasn’t quite set in yet.

“Yeah, I think we’re still living up in the clouds a little bit,” he said.

He returned to UNC the Tuesday after the Grammys and received love from his students and the faculty. He has taught at the college since August 2018.

Akropolis was formed in 2008 during Gocklin’s freshman year at the University of Michigan. The group’s bassoonist, Ryan Reynolds, was also a freshman that year. Gocklin said Reynolds’ name gets the band a lot of recognition. The other members of the group are Kari Landry, Matt Landry and Andrew Koeppe. The group lineup has remained the same since its formation.

“Are We Dreaming the Same Dream” was the group’s sixth album.

The group is consistently touring, too, and it’s why his family and friends are always playing “Where is Tim today?”

Gocklin was in Pittsburgh on Feb. 14 as the group finished its residency at Carnegie Mellon University. After a brief return to Greeley, he’ll fly out to Tennessee with the group for its residency at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

From there, he goes to Virginia, then he’ll fly back to perform with the Cheyenne Symphony, and then he’ll do the same with the Fort Collins Symphony. After those two concerts, he’ll rejoin the group at the University of Oklahoma and then go back to Pennsylvania with them. Then, he’ll come back to Colorado in March to work on a project at Fort Lewis College in Durango.

He gets a few weeks off in March before joining the group again in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Then, they’ll be at a new festival at Illinois State College at the end of March. April starts with him in Boston, and then he comes back to perform with the Fort Collins Symphony.

The group performs 120 concerts a year, according to its website.

He said his UNC students understand his travel commitments, and he does his best to ensure he plans out everything with them ahead of time. He said he was grateful for their understanding.

In August, the group will be in northern Michigan for its Akropolis Chamber Music Institute festival. The group has hosted it for the past three years. The festival brings in college-aged instrumentalists and composers to write music for the group. The group plays the composed music at the end of the week-long festival.

“This festival, for me, is one of the great highlights of my year,” he said.

The group has a residency with three Detroit-area high schools where they work with students throughout the year on a music composition project. The students write music for the group, and then the group performs the student-written piece.

In addition to teaching and playing music, the Grammy-winning group has a music publishing company where they commission composers to sell their music. It’s a sheet music business where they sell the composers’ music to university libraries so other people can enjoy those works.

To learn more about the group and to view its upcoming events, go to akropolisquintet.org.