Dancing To Eternity: Five Grooves For Tenor Saxophone And Electroacoustic Brass and Percussion

Website(s) : http://charlesruggiero.com

Biography

Saxophonist Jordan Lulloff is a senior music performance major at Michigan State University, studying with Professor Joseph Lulloff. Jordan is a member of the MSU Wind Symphony, the Psogo Saxophone Quartet and the J4 Saxophone Quartet. He has been featured as a soloist with the United States Air Force Band, the University of Memphis Wind Ensemble, and the Lansing and Ann Arbor Community Concert Bands. Jordan presented the European Premiere of David Maslanka’s “Tone Studies” at the 16th World Saxophone Congress in Scotland. In February 2015, he will perform Michael Colgrass’ quartet concerto, “Urban Requiem” with the MSU Wind Symphony. He has a strong interest in performing and studying a variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, rap, rock and roll, and contemporary music.

More information

Composer CHARLES RUGGIERO describes his work, DANCING TO ETERNITY: FIVE GROOVES FOR TENOR SAXOPHONE AND ELECTROACOUSTIC BRASS AND PERCUSSION, as follows:

This substantial work represents an important new development in my writing for saxophone. Although I have written 15 compositions that feature the saxophone (including three concertos), some of which have exploited various extended techniques (particularly multiphonics and many different kinds of jazz articulations and “effects”), until now I have not incorporated electroacoustic elements in any of the music I’ve written for saxophone.

For quite some time, I’ve wanted to combine live, real-time saxophone performance with prerecorded electroacoustic sounds, but until this collaboration with JORDAN LULLOFF, one of the most accomplished saxophonists of his generation, I haven’t had the opportunity to pursue this possibility. One of the reasons I am so enthusiastic about this project is that I’m confident Jordan will present an outstanding premiere of this very demanding work.

DANCING TO ETERNITY: FIVE GROOVES FOR TENOR SAXOPHONE AND ELECTROACOUSTIC BRASS AND PERCUSSION is, in a sense, the next step in my integration of live acoustic performed music with electroacoustic sounds. DANCING TO ETERNITY is a substantial composition building upon a lifelong project of forging my unique compositional voice out of a synthesis of jazz and avant-garde art-music elements. This is a pivotal composition in my work, as it both summarizes and further develops this synthesis as well as pointing to new directions for my future compositions.

Duration: ca. 13 minutes (one continuous movement in seven main sections)
1. Introduction – Corporealization
2. Groove 1 – Dances of the Playful and Coy Echoes
3. Groove 2 – Emotional Momentum: Passions Dancing, Intersecting, Asserting
4. Groove 3 – Freedom’s Flight, Fast and Furious
5. Groove 4 – Dance Party
6. Groove 5 – March to Eternity
7. Coda – Restitution

Although in creating it I have borrowed heavily from traditional jazz, salsa, and North American pop music, and despite its lighter, even comic, moments, DANCING TO ETERNITY… is a complex, essentially serious, and quite challenging work for both the performer and his/her audience.

As I complete this composition, I find myself in my 67th year, almost exactly the same age as both of my parents when they died. So perhaps it’s not surprising that while working on DANCING TO ETERNITY… thoughts of my own mortality wafted through my brain cells not infrequently; this, I’m certain, influenced many aspects of the work.