Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Written for the virtuoso reeds composer/performer Adam Simmons in 2015, this work was commissioned for his epic 100:25:1 project, where he collaborated with 100 musicians across 25 consecutive nights in November 2015 to draw attention to the web of connections between members of the Melbourne new music fraternity. The work explores the number 7, a mystical number since the dawn of humanity, and my own lucky number, being born on the 7/7/1961, though now also remembered as the date of the infamous London bombings in 2005. There are 7 sections and the work explores the nature of prime number proportions as a metaphor for musical interactions between the instruments. The Western scale for example consists of seven notes, and primes are heavily represented in Pythogorean tuning relationships, very important for non-keyboard instruments. The landscape of the work evokes the ghost of acid jazz haunting the wasteland of the avant-garde, as humans desperately seek solace in nostalgia.

Work Details

Year: 2015, this version: 2016

Instrumentation: Alto saxophone, piano (plus optional synthesizer or electric piano).

Duration: 7 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — virtuoso technique required, advanced improvisation skill

Dedication note: Dedicated to Benjamin Price. Dedicated to Benjamin Price

First performance: by Benjamin Price, Michael Kieran Harvey — 28 Jun 16. Tasmanian Conservatorium Recital Hall, Hobart

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc associated with this work:
Zappa "We are not alone", Andriessen, Stockhausen