Saxophonist & Educator
Imaginary Folksongs - Stephen Lias
Written in 2011, this engaging set of six short pieces runs the gamut from virtuosic to melancholy to humorous. This audience-pleaser utilizes both alto and soprano saxophone, as well as a few extended techniques.
Three Negro Spirituals - Florence Price
Florence Price (1887-1953) was an American composer and an influential figure in Chicago's Black Renaissance. Born and raised in Arkansas, she enrolled at Boston's New England Conservatory at age 15 and showed incredible promise. She eventually moved to Chicago, where she wrote most of her works and became the first African-American woman to be programmed by a major orchestra.
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In 2009, a substantial catalogue of her compositions was rescued from an abandoned Illinois house slated for demolition. Since then, her music has rapidly re-entered the wider classical canon. Beautifully romantic and infused with the rich cultural heritage of African-American idioms, her music represents an integral part of America's musical history and, as Alex Ross of the New Yorker asserts, ''deserves to be widely heard.''
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Price's spiritual arrangements for violin and piano, named by her as ''Three Negro Spirituals'', date from 1933, around the time of her first big successes as a composer. They are sensitive, beautiful settings of African-American spirituals in the vein of Heifetz, bringing out the natural, soulful expression of the violin. For advanced players.
Journey - Lori Laitman
This is truly a “song without words” as the permission for the poem was removed after the setting was done. (Long story that really can’t be told!).
Lilac Tears - Jennifer Jolley
When Tim McAllister asked me to write him and his piano partner, Liz Ames, a piece for their ongoing “Project Encore,” I was delighted. The opportunity to write for one of the greatest saxophonists of all time is a great honor, if also a joyful challenge. How does one write an encore for a top performer who always plays a brilliant concert? As I began to sketch my first attempts at the commission, I kept thinking about how similarly gifted instrumentalists concluded a performance.Suddenly I thought of a perfect analog: Prince’s 2004 performance of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at Harrison’s posthumous induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Harrison’s song is a meditative piece written for his band The Beatles. It is often tied to a disharmonious period in the band’s tenure and the spiritual ambivalence of its author. In form, it is a sort of twentieth-century pop music chaconne in its schematic structure that operates as a vehicle for a dazzling instrumental line in its final third. On the night of the performance, Prince stood to the side of an all-star band that included Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jeff Lynne, and Steve Winwood. When The Purple One (uncharacteristically dressed in red under his black mourning suit) emerged for the final third, he proceeded to eclipse his collaborators. Prince’s performance cemented his status as one of music’s greatest guitarists and acted as an ecstatic apotheosis that remedied the doubt detected in Harrison’s earlier verses.
“Lilac Tears” is my engagement of this phenomenal solo with the ambition to showcase Tim’s skillful playing and the emotional depths that his playing inspires. It is an homage to the almost alchemical experience of great instrumentalists and a testament to my esteem for Tim in the comparison.
Rhapsody on Japanese Folksongs - Ryota Ishikawa
Rhapsody on Japanese Folksongs is a fusion of traditional japanese melodies with western classical composition. Ishikawa creates a beautiful, rich, and exciting diversity of music within this single work.