Just finished a big new piece for 9 saxophones, low clarinets and percussion. It will be premiered in November by a super group put together by Naomi Sullivan for the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain 50th Anniversary!

Here’s an abridged section from the programme note:

“3534 Sax (1936 XA) is a kind of love letter to saxophones and low clarinets in a continuous 20-minute form. The piece is playful, energetic, intricate and euphoric… The higher saxophones take many of the melodic ideas but also work together to create hocket-like textures and expansive polyphonic moments. The low clarinets and baritone saxophones often collaborate on grubby bass lines. Three percussionists join the single reeds…

The title of the piece 3534 Sax (1936 XA) comes from the asteroid ‘3534 Sax’ which is named after the inventor of the saxophone (and developer of the modern bass clarinet mechanism) Adolphe Sax. The asteroid was discovered and named by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte on 12 December 1936 and was one of 66 he found in his lifetime… I won’t pretend properties of the asteroid informed my approach in writing the piece; indeed, ‘3534 Sax’ was described by close family friend and astronomer Dr Alexis Smith as largely unremarkable, but I continue to be taken by the notion of a saxophone space rock.”

I also went to Dinant, Belgium, briefly in the summer where Adolph Sax was born. There are lots of cool saxophone sculptures and a small but excellent museum!

In Dinant.