This art­icle ori­gin­ally appeared in the World Asso­ci­ation for Sym­phonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) News­let­ter 2001.

Intro­duc­tion: the Last Pic­ture Show
The late War­ren Ben­son always coun­selled against mak­ing lists—and now I know why. My list of sax­o­phone rep­er­toire came out in the WASBE News­let­ter in 2001, was updated in 2003 for the web, again in 2005 for my own web, and again to cel­eb­rate the quarter cen­tury of BASBWE and WASBE. It is already out of date, not because of new pieces but of old, a Con­certo for Four Sax­o­phones and Band by Bill Con­nor, premiered in its band ver­sion by The Band of HM Royal Mar­ines at Hud­der­sfield BASBWE Con­fer­ence in 1994, last­ing forty-four minutes and recap­tur­ing the fla­vour of the bands for the silent movies. But wait, there is a ter­rible sense of déjà vu. I left out of my ori­ginal list a work on a sim­ilar theme, also for quar­tet, the superb Minton’s Play­house by James Syler. War­ren, you were, as always, abso­lutely right!

Recent Works for Sax­o­phone and Ensemble
Ball, Michael — Con­certo — Alto & Band — Mae­cenas
Beur­den, Bern­ard van — Con­certo — Sop­rano & Band — bernardvanbeurden@wanadoo.fr
Beur­den, Bern­ard van — Let’s Go — 9 Sax­o­phones & Band — bernardvanbeurden@wanadoo.fr
Bour­geois, Derek — Romance — Alto and Band — G&M Brand
Casken, John — Dis­tant Vari­ations — 4tet & Wind E. — Schott
Col­grass, Michael — Dream Dan­cer — Alto & Wind E — Carl Fisc­her
Con­nor, Bill — After the Pic­ture Show — 4tet and Band — Bill Con­nor
Den­isov, Edison (arr Smirnov) — Son­ata — Alto & Cham­ber winds — Leduc
Fitkin, Gra­ham — Game Show — Alto & Band — Gra­ham Fitkin
Goh, Zecharaiah — Con­certino — Alto & Band — Leonard Tan tubbyleo@cyberway.com.sg
Kech­ley, David — Rest­less Birds Before the Dark Moon — Alto & Band — Pine Val­ley Press
Larsen, Libby (arr Boyd) — Holy Roller — Alto & Band — OUP
Lemay, Robert — Ramal­lah — Alto and Ensemble — Lauren­tian Uni­ver­sity / Uni­versité Lauren­tienne
Linkola, Jukka — Con­certo — Alto & Band — FMIC
Makris, Andreas — Fantasy and Dance — Alto & Band — South­ern
Maslanka, David — Con­certo — Alto & Wind E — Carl Fisc­her
Mil­haud, Darius (arr Blom­hert) — Scara­mouche — Alto & Cham­ber winds — manu­script
Mower, Mike — Con­certo for Alto Sax­o­phone — Alto and Band — www.itchyfingers.com
Peaslee, Richard — Chicago Con­certo — Bari­tone & Ensemble — www.schirmer.com
Scott, Andy — Dark Rain­drops — 2 Sax­o­phones and band — info@astute-music.com

Some Basic Rep­er­toire for Sax­o­phone and Band
Bad­ings, Henk — Con­certo — Quar­tet & Wind Ensemble — Peters
Barker, War­ren — Capric­cio — Quar­tet & Wind Orches­tra — Jen­son
Ben­son, War­ren — Star Edge — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — Carl Fisc­her
Ben­son, War­ren — Con­certino — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — Carl Fisc­her
Boutry, Roger — Diver­ti­mento — Alto & Band — Leduc
Col­grass, Michael — Urban Requiem — Quar­tet & Wind Ensemble — Carl Fisc­her
Cre­ston, Paul — Con­certo — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — Schirmer
Dahl, Ingolf — Con­certo — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — ACA*
Erick­son, Frank — Con­certo — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — Bourne
Gotkovsky, Ida — Con­certo — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — Molen­aar
Hartley, Wal­ter — Con­certo — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — Presser
Husa, Karel — Con­certo — Alto & Wind Orches­tra — AMP
Ito, Yas­uhide — Con­certo Fant­astique — Alto & Wind Ensemble — manu­script
Kalinkowic — Con­cert Capric­cio — Alto & Band
Linn , Robert — Con­certo — Sop and Wind Band
Mul­downey, Dominic — Con­certo — Alto & WE/Str Quin­tet — UE
Schuller, Gun­ther — Headin’ out, Movin’ in — Tenor & Jazz ensemble — Mar­gun
Smith, Claude — Fantasia — Alto & Band — Wingert-Jones
Syler, James — Minton’s Play­house — Quar­tet, tape and WE — Ballerbach

Past Sell-by Date 14 June 2005
Some time ago I wrote a brief art­icle for WASBE on Sax­o­phone rep­er­toire, inspired by the premiere of a new piece from Michael Col­grass by con­sor­tium mem­bers led by Ken­neth Rad­nowsky, and per­form­ances of the Con­certo by Michael Ball. Since then a lot has happened, and my art­icle is even more out of date than it was.

Stop Press 15 Janu­ary 2006
While send­ing a note to col­leagues on the WASBE Exec­ut­ive to ask if my art­icle on the WASBE web site could be updated, I real­ised that my own web site is out of date. At the BASBWE Con­fer­ence Novem­ber 2005, John Harle and Rob Buck­land, with the Chet­hams School Wind Orches­tra con­duc­ted by James Gour­lay, gave a stun­ning per­form­ance of the latest BASBWE Con­sor­tium com­mis­sion. Adam Gorb wrote to me:
By the way Andy Scott’s new double Sax­o­phone con­certo is abso­lutely tremendous—a really 21st cen­tury mix of jazz, pop and street­wise funky rhythms: along with Zechariah Goh’s piece the best new wind band work of the year; you must catch it.

Andy’s con­certo for two sax­o­phones is called Dark Rain­drops and will be pub­lished and avail­able for hire from Astute Music. Con­tact info@astute-music.com

John Harle in UK Premiere
The Con­certo by Michael Ball I com­mis­sioned some time ago, and I was delighted to be able to play it recently at the Royal Col­lege of Music with a super young Aus­tralian player, Amy Dick­son, win­ner of a num­ber of very pres­ti­gi­ous awards. A work I was keen on then was David Kechley’s Rest­less Birds before the Dark Moon and I am delighted to have con­duc­ted the UK premiere of this at the Bar­bican on 24 Octo­ber with John Harle and the Guild­hall; this was repeated at the Inter­na­tional Sax­o­phone Day in Manchester on Sunday 6 November.

This update is again inspired by a spate of world premi­eres, Mike Mower’s vir­tu­oso Con­certo, premiered in Lex­ing­ton Ken­tucky on Monday 17 April; sadly the Con­certo for Sax­o­phone Quar­tet and Wind Orches­tra by Richard Rod­ney Ben­nett due to be played at BASBWE in 2005 was can­celled. The Mike Mower Con­certo is a tour de force for Pro­fessor of Sax­o­phone at Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky, Lex­ing­ton, who is a very phys­ical and excit­ing player. I know noth­ing about jazz, but I love the free­wheel­ing invent­ive­ness of Mower’s con­certo, and also his Flute Con­certo, full of fun, some­times very beau­ti­ful, often breath-takingly vir­tu­osic, always chal­len­ging, rarely predictable.

Web Brows­ings
Brows­ing through the web, one comes across all sorts of ideas. In my first web homepage I noted a work by Richard Peaslee called Chicago Con­certo for Alto and Ensemble, pub­lished by Schirmer. I first came across Peaslee when I was, for a won­der­ful three weeks, dir­ector of music in Paris for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre pro­duc­tion by Peter Brook of Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream; Richard’s music was evoc­at­ive and charm­ing, and I was delighted to come across his Arrows of Time arranged for Trom­bone and Wind Ensemble. I guess that Chicago Con­certo will be a real find, espe­cially for bari­tone players.

My Decem­ber homepage noted that the win­ner of the 2004 Inter­na­tional Har­moniecom­pos­it­iewed­strijd Harel­beke Muziek­stad (catchy title) was Ramal­lah for alto sax­o­phone and wind ensemble by the Cana­dian com­poser Robert Lemay, from Lauren­tian Uni­ver­sity, Sud­bury, Ontario. In the list of ‘new’ works are some old ones, but they are rel­at­ively new to me. One com­poser whose music I enjoy is Bern­ard van Beur­den, greatly under-rated; his Con­certino for Sop­rano Sax­o­phone is charm­ing and well-worth explor­ing, and I am sure that the ‘Let’s Go’ for Nine Sax­o­phones will be a great vehicle for a good sax­o­phone studio.

The Old Ori­ginal Art­icle
There has recently been a ter­rific crop of new works for Sax­o­phone and Wind Band/Orchestra/Ensemble or whatever you want to call it. The biggest prob­lem is simply get­ting the news around about major premi­eres, and here the World Asso­ci­ation for Sym­phonic Bands & Ensembles has a major role to play if play­ers, con­duct­ors and audi­ence let WASBE know about per­form­ances. One of the great bene­fits of the inter­net and email is that there is now no excuse for our not exchan­ging information.

Rest­less Birds Before the Dark Moon
I think that one of the most strik­ing pieces I have heard for a long time is David Kechley’s Rest­less Birds Before the Dark Moon, com­mis­sioned by the United States Mil­it­ary Academy Band at West Point to cel­eb­rate their bicen­ten­nial, and premiered by this band at the Inter­na­tional Sax­o­phone Sym­posium in Montreal, Canada on 7 July 2000 by alto sax­o­phone soloist, Wayne Tice, with con­ductor, David Deitrick. Two move­ments of tech­nical vir­tu­os­ity frame a more reflect­ive chorale-like move­ment, which has at its ker­nel another explo­sion of vir­tu­os­ity for the soloist accom­pan­ied by per­cus­sion. This is an excit­ing work, con­tem­por­ary but audi­ence friendly, and it is not at all sur­pris­ing that the work won one of the major com­pos­i­tion prizes—the National Band Asso­ci­ation Rev­elli Memorial Prize—in 2000. David Kech­ley has writ­ten sev­eral sub­stan­tial works involving sax­o­phones, includ­ing In the Dragon’s Garden for Alto Sax­o­phone and Gui­tar, and Step­ping Out for Sax­o­phone Quar­tet and is on the fac­ulty at Wil­li­ams University.

Den­isov and Larsen Arranged
I am not per­son­ally a great fan of arrange­ments unless they are most skil­fully done. How­ever, when an arrange­ment will intro­duce a piece to a wider audi­ence, and where the tran­scrip­tion has been skil­fully made by a com­poser of stature or a very exper­i­enced arranger, then there is a good case for per­form­ing them. Two import­ant con­tem­por­ary works and a mid-20th cen­tury clas­sic are now avail­able with wind accom­pani­ment and can be whole­heartedly recom­men­ded. The Rus­sian com­poser, Dmitri Smirnov, writes, ‘My teacher, Edison Den­isov (1929–1996), in his youth (in 1950) sent to Shos­takovich all his early scores, and Dmitri Shos­takovich found “the great composer’s gift” in them. As a respect­ful trib­ute to Shos­takovich, he wrote a piece named DSCH (1969). And it was no mere sur­prise that his next com­pos­i­tion Son­ata for Alto Sax­o­phone and Piano (1970) also begins and is based on the mono­gram of Shostakovich’s name: “DSC” says the Sax­o­phone, “H” answers the piano. The piece became one of the greatest hits of the sax­o­phone rep­er­toire. I met sax­o­phon­ist Arno Bornkamp a couple of years ago, and he said: “I adore the Den­isov Son­ata. It is one of the best pieces writ­ten for sax­o­phone. I dream to play it with orches­tra as a sax­o­phone con­certo.” Now this dream becomes a real­ity. Com­mis­sioned by the Neder­lands Blazers Ensemble, Dur­a­tion is about 12 minutes.’ This arrange­ment is scored for flute, pairs of oboes, cla­ri­nets, bas­soons and horns, with per­cus­sion and double bass and is pub­lished by Leduc. Another piece with cham­ber ensemble is an arrange­ment of Darius Milhaud’s Scara­mouche made by the Dutch con­ductor, arranger and musi­co­lo­gist, Basti­aan Blom­hert. Author­ized by Mme. Mil­haud and Edi­tions Salabert, the work is for double wind quin­tet with tuba/double bass. It is in manu­script. Inform­a­tion is avail­able from WASBE mem­ber, Bastian Blomhert.

Holy Roller
Libby Larsen’s Holy Roller for sax­o­phone and piano has quickly estab­lished itself as a great recital piece. I have not actu­ally heard it yet in the ori­ginal, but John Boyd’s tran­scrip­tion for band, pub­lished by Oxford Uni­ver­sity Press, is so the­at­rical that I can­not ima­gine that the ori­ginal can be quite as effect­ive. There was a mem­or­able UK premiere by Rob Buck­land, who burst on the stage and began rant­ing and rav­ing like a South­ern preacher, very authen­tic until we began to hear him plead­ing for sub­scrip­tions to WASBE to be sent to, I think, him.

Dream Dan­cer
Michael Col­grass has now con­trib­uted two major works to the sax­o­phone world. His Urban Requiem for Sax­o­phone Quar­tet and Wind Orches­tra is pub­lished by Carl Fisc­her and is avail­able on at least two record­ings, one by the com­mis­sion­ing body, the Uni­ver­sity of Miami Wind Ensemble con­duc­ted by Gary Green (TROY212), the other by Craig Kirch­hoff and the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota Sym­phonic Wind Ensemble, recor­ded on innova 517. His most recent work was the res­ult of a com­mis­sion from a con­sor­tium of inter­na­tional ensembles, put together by Ken­neth Rad­nowsky, who gave the first per­form­ance at the Royal North­ern Col­lege of Music, Manchester, UK. A month later, the critic of the Boston Globe, Richard Dyer, wrote of the United States premiere at the New Eng­land Con­ser­vat­ory: ‘The per­form­ance under [Charles] Peltz was first-rate, and the music felt—and you do feel Colgrass’s music—gorgeous, dra­matic, com­pel­ling. Dream Dan­cer issues a promis­sory note for an even more excit­ing cen­tury for this musical medium. Col­grass uses tra­di­tion as the basis for cre­at­ing a future.’ The scor­ing of this work is for the wind, brass and per­cus­sion of the sym­phony orches­tra, picc, fl, alt fl, 2 obs, (2nd dbl Eng hn), Eb clar, Bb clar, bass clar, 2 bsns, cbn, 4 hns, 3 tpts, 3 tbns, tba, key­board (pno & cel), hp, 2 cb, 4–5 perc.

Brit­ish Music for Sax­o­phone
Here then are six more major con­tri­bu­tions to the swiftly increas­ing rep­er­toire for solo sax­o­phone and wind ensemble/wind orches­tra, to which I think can be added three works which I com­mis­sioned from UK com­posers. Michael Ball’s Sax­o­phone Con­certo (Mae­cenas) and Gra­ham Fitkin’s Game Show (ms) were both com­mis­sioned for and premiered by the Manchester-based player, Robert Buck­land, while John Casken’s Dis­tant Vari­ations for Sax­o­phone Quar­tet and Wind Ensemble (Schotts) was writ­ten for Buckland’s Apollo Quar­tet. Ball’s Con­certo is an ener­getic work, in three move­ments, scored for a school or com­munity band at about Amer­ican Grade 4. Game Show was a joint com­mis­sion with the Uster Fest­ival and was premiered there in 1997. It is a rest­less min­im­al­ist work, curi­ous in that the band includes three sop­rano sax­o­phones. Dis­tant Vari­ations was premiered at London’s Bar­bican in 1997 and has received per­form­ances world­wide since then. It is cast in one move­ment, tough, closely argued, and requir­ing vir­tu­os­ity of both the quar­tet and the orches­tra. For more inform­a­tion about these three works, con­tact the pub­lish­ers or Rob Buck­land c/o RNCM, 124 Oxford Road, Manchester.

Headin’ Out, Movin’ In
Incid­ent­ally, on my return from USA after hear­ing the Amer­ican premiere of the Col­grass, I was assailed by Andy Scott of the Apollo Quar­tet, who wanted to know why there were not any con­cer­tos fea­tur­ing tenor sax­o­phone. There is at least one which I heard at New Eng­land and enjoyed hugely, Headin’ Out, Movin’ In for Tenor Sax­o­phone and Jazz Ensemble by Gun­ther Schuller, pub­lished by Margun/Bote und Bock.

WASBE and the Sax­o­phone
Vari­ous WASBE Con­fer­ence con­certs have fea­tured sax­o­phone soloists. In 1999, Norbert Nozy gave a ter­rific per­form­ance of the bril­liant Con­cert Capric­cio for Alto Sax and Band on a Theme by Paganini by Vassili Kalinkovic (recor­ded on Mark Records 3141MCD). In Valen­cia in 1993, the prin­cipal alto sax­o­phone of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orches­tra, Nobuya Sug­awa, played the Con­certo Fant­astique by Yas­uhide Ito, and in 1987 at the Boston Con­fer­ence, John Paynter and the North­shore Con­cert Band premiered War­ren Barker’s Capric­cio for Sax­o­phone Quar­tet and Band. In 2001 in Lucerne, one of the high spots or low spots, (con­tro­versy raged) was the per­form­ance of the Mah­lerian Sax­o­phone Con­certo by David Maslanka, given by Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona Wind Ensemble and Joseph Lul­loff, the per­formers who premiered the work at the North Amer­ican Sax­o­phone Alli­ance Con­fer­ence in March 2000.

Addendum
Mar­vin Eck­roth writes: ‘Gene Rousseau and F. Fen­nell pro­duced a CD a couple of years ago of all solo sax­o­phone works with wind ensemble, so more stuff is around.’ Just a couple of items here: Diver­ti­mento by Roger Boutry is now avail­able with wind band, pub­lished by Leduc (Boutry did the Band set­ting), and is really worth­while. It would also be worth list­ing the Claude Smith Fantasia pub­lished by Wingert-Jones (played at WASBE 1989 by Dale Under­wood) as well as the very con­tem­por­ary Kafr of Chris­tian Lauba (Sax­o­phone and Flute Soloists) played at the 1997 WASBE Con­fer­ence; this is a fine work that takes more than one hear­ing to appre­ci­ate and is not always an access­ible work, but is very sig­ni­fic­ant and distinctive.