Saxophone Quartet No. 2 (2024 - 25)
Premiered by Kodachrome in Phoenix, Arizona on March 30th, 2025.
Duration: c. 14:00
This quartet consists of an abstract prelude, followed by three different memories that each relate, in some way, to light:
Light Through the Surface: Paradise Reef, March 2010
I did my first open-water dive in Cozumel when I was ten years old. I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel to Cozumel and dive many times, and I have always loved the way the surface of the ocean looks from below, and the way that sunlight breaks through it. It is particularly striking when a boat darts across and churns up a wake.
Prehistoric Light: Lake Powell, June 2012
This movement comes from countless memories of being in Lake Powell, where there’s no light pollution, watching shooting stars streak across the sky with my childhood friends.
The middle section of the movement is inspired by these very strange characters that we played (Mildred and Henry) before falling asleep. We would put on these horrible voices and sort of groan at each other under the night sky. It’s a good thing we were in the desert and there was nobody else around.
I’ve always been fascinated with the fact that the light that reaches us from the stars is up to millions of years old, and I also thought that the beautiful desert sky contrasted with the Mildred and Henry thing in a very funny way, so that’s what this movement is built around.
Lights on 13th Street: Boulder, December 2018
December of 2018 was one of the most intensely awful months of my life. It was the sixth month of a steady decline in my mental health, and in December I made decisions that made me very alone and very afraid of myself. One of the things that made me most afraid was my inability to find joy in things that I ordinarily loved. If I loved music, or video games, or my friends and family, which I’m sure I did, it was buried too deep to feel.
One of my only somewhat positive memories from this month is from a late-night walk home from school after a fresh snowfall. As I’m writing this, I realize that it was probably right after the premiere of my saxophone sextet, which is a funny coincidence.
In any case, I remember very vividly the moment I saw the snow in my front yard, and the way that it sparkled under the moonlight. And I just sort of stared at it for a while. It was novel for me to find anything beautiful at that time, and so I had to just take it in until I got too cold.