The University of Tennessee Chattanooga saxophone studio performed Breathe, Set, Play at the North American Saxophone Alliance Region 7 conference in March. The ensemble is under the direction of Dr. Sean Fredenburg Head of Woodwinds and Lecturer of Saxophone and Music Theory at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

At the end of February, I had two composition projects come to fruition, both for double reed ensembles and both thanks to a collaboration with Dr. Javier Rodriguez, bassoonist and Associate Professor at the University of Idaho.

Rhapsody for Double Reeds

First was the Rhapsody for Double Reeds, written to be a showcase for the guest faculty invited to the 2025 edition of Puerto Rico Double Reed Day, held in Ponce, Puerto Rico at the Escuela Libre de Musica Juan Morel Campos de Ponce.

PROGRAM NOTE

Commissioned for the 2025 Puerto Rico Double Reed Day, I wanted to write something that captured the energy of the place. Though I’ve never been, I feel I know something of it: to a person, the Boricuas I’ve met and befriended are fiercely proud of where they come from, singing the praises of the water, the beach, the sun, dancing, food, and the people. Told through my own musical language, I tried to express this proud energy and love of place while acknowledging the island has been through challenging times; though there is no joy in suffering (especially when unnecessary) these trials have showcased the power of community and resilience in PR.

On the Trail

The second premiere was of a piece written for the University of Idaho Double Reed Ensemble with a programmatic inspiration that will be familiar to many who’ve been following along here for awhile:

PROGRAM NOTE

On the Trail conjures an experience I’ve imagined many times: at the end of a long day of solo backpacking, though the scenery is stunning, the solitude begins to wear. Shadows grow longer and you need to find a place to camp. Ahead is nook below a high saddle that seems promising. On that saddle silhouetted against the sky you notice a figure waving wildly and shouting at you. Their hollering is hard to make out, but something about their manner seems familiar. You hear something that sounds like your name float across the wind and it clicks: that’s an old friend up there! You surge up the trail in recognition and enjoy a happy reunion, starved for companionship and beyond grateful for a familiar face. Though you’re going opposite directions on the trail and the rendezvous is short-lived, being reminded of how you relate to the human world puts your once-again stunning surroundings back into perspective. You find a comfortable spot to bed down for the night and nod off, warmed by your encounter.

Some takeaways from my last year of tracking my music writing:

• I absolutely nailed the 7th day of every month! Go number 7!

• The first day of each month was the day on which I was least likely to write—only three out of 11 months!

• My longest streak was 37 days (March 15th - April 18th)

• If you cross your eyes and squint, doesn’t the pattern of days look a little bit like a face? With the eyes around May 16th and 27th? The mouth gaping in late July and August? Shoulders widening back out in October and November?

• The middle of the year looks mighty sparse! In the month of July I wrote on a paltry five out of 31 days…!

How did I feel about not writing music every day?

At the time, I know I felt badly. I’ve heard there are those who (say they) let absolutely nothing get in the way of sticking to their creative time—not injury, emergency, travel, friends, family. Channeling this, on one backpacking trip late in the season after a summer of struggling to string more than a handful of composing days together, I brought a scrap of staff paper to squeeze 20 minutes in at camp.

Definitely didn’t happen.

How do I feel about not getting much writing done during the summer now?

It’s December. In the pacific northwest we’ve now had two full months of dark and rain, dark and rain that encourages lots of inside time—with friends, loved ones, books, naps, food, and music. And between the months of October, November, and December, I’ve strung together enough days of writing to rival my streaks from the beginning of the year.

Like a sponge, I seem to have soaked up the energy of the sun and summer and now it is powering my music writing. I wrote a little bit about the unexpected (and frequent!) tenderness and joy that finds its way into my music—maybe this is where it comes from, bottled up, set aside in the cellar for when the sun sets at 4:27PM 13 days in a row at the bottom of the calendar.

So maybe this tracker chart needs to look different to reflect the realities of the seasons.

Not only is imitation the highest compliment (and one of the best ways to learn) - it’s also impossible to create a 100% facsimile of anything else; a part of yourself will always slip into your attempt to copy what you admire.

I’ve always admired the arcing first movements in the symphonies of Bruckner (Nos. 7, 8), Mahler (Nos. 1, 3, 7, 9, 10), and Shostakovich (Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) - arcs that pick you up one place and set you down somewhere else after 20+ minutes of perfectly paced music with plenty of time for reflection - provided the conductor is attentive.

As far as imitation goes, these three composers are part of a well-documented musical lineage: Shostakovich’s frequent blending of tragedy and comedy to achieve pathos borrows heavily from Mahler’s precedent. And Mahler conducted and admired Bruckner’s music, incorporating Bruckner’s harmonic and expressive innovations into his own symphonies.

A recipe

Picking and choosing my favorite bits from this extended family of music, I wrote out a rough dramatic template for a Bruckner/Mahler/Shostakovich musical arc so I could make one of my own:

1. Opening: Spare, sometimes stern motto theme simply stated

2. A responding idea that is often warm and enveloping (though with Shostakovich, this response is usually chillier than the opening)

3. These two moods alternate off and on, developing and varying as they do (especially characteristic of a Bruckner Adagio)

4. Central drama: A long and unremitting build to a climax, which can be shocking/traumatic. The climax often coincides with the return of the spare motto theme

5. A calm (though not always happy) and reflective stretch of music that very much exists in the shadow of the traumatic climax

6. An ending that melts away

There are many exceptions to this recipe within the Bruckner/Mahler/Shostakovich extended family, but this sequence seems the most convincing scaffolding that synthesizes their collective approach. For those more familiar, if I had to choose two pieces that were the clearest models for my arc, they would be the first movements of Mahler’s 10th and Shostakovich’s 8th symphonies.

With recipe in hand, the remaining question was what kind of ensemble to write for? Though getting the music performed wasn’t strictly the purpose of the exercise, as I was putting this recipe together, a colleague expressed interest in my catalogue of rep for saxophone quartet. I asked for a week to get ready to share what I had to offer.

I had a recipe, an ensemble type, and a deadline. Would something worth sharing emerge from the exercise in imitation?