Composer: Taran Carter (born 1980)

Date of Composition: 2005

Country: Australia

Premiere: 28, November, 2007 – Barry Cockroft (alto saxophone), Adam Pinto (piano); Rolston Recital Hall, the Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Duration: 9 minutes

Difficulty level: 8

Stylistic Features:

• Instrumental techniques include quarter tones, subtones, glissandi, flutter tonguing, slap tonguing, air noises, tongue clicks, altissimo register.
• Octave displacements, regular leaps of major 7th, minor 9th etc.
• Rhythmically complex, occasional irrational beat subdivision, syncopated pseudo-disco rhythms (an ability to dance like John Travolta would help!)
• Instrumentation: alto saxophone and piano

Publisher: Reed Music

Recording:

Other Comments:
Naked Hum (2006) is a virtuosic and atmospheric piece designed to explore texture, density, distorted repetition and disco rhythms. The work is dense and complex at times but has an inherent simplicity to its form and melodic material disguised through jagged octave displacements, extreme registers and irrational subdivisions of the beat. Naked Hum begins with the work’s unifying motif (played on the piano) while the saxophone glides around this motif (or riff) employing quarter-tones and glissandi to create an eery ambience. Hidden subtly in this texture the piano player is asked to click his tongue on the occasional backbeat. This is one of the works first, of many, references to Pop music. The music builds in intensity until about five minutes into the piece when the piano plays discoesque syncopated rhythms and a wild dialogue/dance between the piano and the saxophone begins. This section climaxes with a chaotic unison passage and, with a gasp, the music explodes into a kind of exhausted recapitulation of the original idea. Naked Hum was premiered by Barry Cockroft and Adam Pinto on the 28th of November 2007 in Canada.

About the composer:
Born in 1980 Taran Carter has been writing music since he realised that to be a Pop Star you either had to look good, sound good or write nice tunes. He chose the latter. Taran’s musical interests are diverse; they include Toru Takemitsu, Paul Simon, Iannis Xenakis, Augie March, Arvo Pärt, Tom Waits and Claude Debussy. Perhaps because of these varied influences Taran’s music often explores the common aspects between the pop and contemporary classical worlds. This approach has attracted performances by groups such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia.

Taran has written music for film, television, theatre and in 1999 was asked to write two songs to which the Australian Synchronised Swimming Team swam at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Taran studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne under the tuition of Mark Pollard, Julian Yu and Johanna Selleck but also found time to grab lessons from other influential composition teachers such as Michael Smetanin, Stuart Greenbaum and Laurie Whiffen.

Taran lives not far from Melbourne with his partner and two daughters.

Composer: Stuart Greenbaum (born 1966)

Date of composition: 2002

Country: Australia

Dedication and premiere: Written for Barry Cockcroft and Adam Pinto

Premiere: 30 April, 2003 – Barry Cockcroft (alto saxophone) and Adam Pinto (piano); Melba Hall, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

Duration: 21 minutes

Difficulty level: 8

Stylistic features:
A Sonata in 3 movements
1: Moderate, Expansive. A lyrical, post-minimal construction which presents rhythmic challenges against constant time signature changes and working its way up into the highest register of the instrument.
2: Slow, theme and variations: notable for the use of the saxophone in blending with the piano but also in the use of the solo unaccompanied line to represent both line and harmony.
3: Fast, mercurial. The final movement is marked at a frenetic, challenging tempo of 180 – 200, and like the first movement features constant changing of time signatures.

• instrumental techniques include growl tone, bends and the use of the altissimo register.
• the influence of the blues and contemporary jazz / fusion welded to a post-minimalist / classical architecture.

Instrumentation: alto saxophone and piano

Publisher: Reed Music

Recording: CD: “Mercurial” [RM099]. Available from the publisher.

Recording sample:

Other comments:

Review:
The opening movement is based around a constantly changing meter alternating groups of two and three quavers, developing into a very strong set of memorable themes, ending with an altissimo version of the theme that is ethereal and haunting. The second movement is dogged in its slow forward movement. The simple theme becoming gradually more ornate as the movement unfolds. The climax unfolds in a cascade of scales that brings the piece to its emotional high point. The third movement, marked Mercurial, the title of the CD, is made of additive rhythms, as in the first movement, but faster. The judicious use of altissimo to bring the piece to an exciting finale is well negotiated by Cockcroft, who is surely one of Australia’s finest exponents of classical saxophone playing. I highly recommend this CD.”

James Nightingale, Australian Clarinet & Saxophone Vol 8-4, December 2005

About the composer: The Stuart Greenbaum sound has overt connections to jazz, pop and minimalism but goes beyond these important influences. Greenbaum (Melb. 1966–) studied composition with Brenton Broadstock and Barry Conyngham at the University of Melbourne, where he now holds a position in the School of Music as Senior Lecturer and Convenor of Composition.

Greenbaum was a Featured Composer at the 2006 Aurora Festival (Western Sydney), resident composer at the 2009 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival and Composer in Focus at the 2009 Bangalow Music Festival. He has won a number of awards, including the Dorian Le Galliene Composition Award, the Heinz Harant Prize, and the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award.90 Minutes Circling the Earth won ‘Orchestral Work of the Year’ at the 2008 Classical Music Awards. His most recent individual CD, Mercurial, was released in 2005.

He has written extensively for the saxophone which connects to his love of rock and contemporary jazz music and seeks to take that idiomatic sound into new areas. www.stuartgreenbaum.com

Composer: Matthew Orlovich (born 1970)

Date of composition: 2006

Country: Australia

Dedication and premiere: Written for Barry Cockcroft and Adam Pinto

Premiere: Sunday 8 October, 2006 – Barry Cockcroft (alto saxophone) and Adam Pinto (piano); Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, Port Fairy, VIC, Australia.

Duration: 12 minutes

Difficulty level: 8

Stylistic features:
• Section 1 (b.1-167) – “With bite”. High intensity music, characterized by rapid, unison chromatic passages which twist and scurry up, down and around the musical staves.
• Section 2 (b.168-237) – The energy drops, allowing for a more intimate and introspective mood. Alto sax and piano play a very delicate, lyrical music featuring evocative, sustained tones over gently rhythmic undercurrents.
• Section 3 (b.238-338) – High intensity music makes a return, leading to a full recapitulation of the twisting and scurrying music of Section 1.
• A brief coda (b.339-348) further increases the intensity of the music, bringing the work to its climactic conclusion.

Instrumentation: alto saxophone and piano

Publisher: Reed Music

Recording: CD: “Crazy Logic” [RM333]. Available from the publisher.

Recording sample:

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Other comments:

“…compelling…” [Elizabeth Ruthven, The Mercury, Hobart, TAS, 22 September, 2007].

The composer writes: “Crazy Logic (for alto saxophone and piano, 2006) was composed at the invitation of saxophonist Barry Cockcroft and pianist Adam Pinto.

“In composing the work, I have chosen to use musical ideas of a mostly intense and driving nature. My melodic lines comprise semiquavers which twist, scurry and traverse up, down and around the musical staves at a great pace. Furthermore, the two instrumentalists often play in unison or at the octave, lending added urgency and directness to the music.

“While a softer, more reflective mood is revealed at the heart of the work, it is the energetic music with its chromatic kinks, jagged contours and wide leaps that elicits, for me, the ‘crazy’ mood alluded to in the work’s title. In stitching my ‘crazy’ music together, I have aimed to afford the work a certain logic by virtue of balanced phrasing and fluent transitions between sections of the work.

“I thank Barry and Adam for inviting me to compose this work and for giving the work its premiere performance.”

About the composer: Based in Sydney, Australia, Matthew Orlovich studied music composition at the University of Sydney (B.Mus Hons 1993, PhD. 2000) with Eric Gross and Peter Sculthorpe. His compositions include music for solo instrumentalists, chamber groups, choirs, bands and symphony orchestras.

In recent years, Matthew has composed several works for saxophone. These include “Air Traffic Control” (for solo saxophone, 2002), “Crazy Logic” (for alto saxophone and piano, 2006) and “Flight of Fancy” (for alto saxophone and piano, 2006). Matthew’s current commissions include an exciting new concerto scored for alto saxophone and concert band. www.mattheworlovich.com