Athens Saxophone Quartet performance

Website(s) : http://www.athenssaxophonequartet.com

Biography

The Athens Saxophone Quartet (ASQ) was founded by Athanasios Zervas in 1997 and is considered one of the finest chamber music ensembles of Greece. The ASQ has frequent appearances internationally in music festivals and concert halls, and has premiered more than one hundred compositions. Although the repertory of the ASQ comprises works of different eras and styles, the majority of its repertory is music composed after 1945.

The ASQ sound is brilliant, directly reflects the stylistic characteristics of the compositions, and most of all is very flexible, adapting to various idiomatic and extended techniques. The ASQ’s members are virtuoso saxophonists as well as accomplished composers, theorists, and teachers in universities and colleges.

More information

We propose to perform two works for saxophone quartet composed for our group, “Tetrasax,” by Athanasios Zervas, and “here is no water but only rock,” by Eric Honour. Both composers are also saxophonists and members of the Athens Saxophone Quartet, and these works explore the expansive and expressive possibilities of the instruments in depth. In “Tetrasax,” Zervas, the founder of the Athens Saxophone Quartet, uses graphic notation to guide the group in an improvisation based upon heterophonic development and the juxtaposition of contrasting textures. Meanwhile, taking inspiration from poetry by T.S. Eliot, Honour’s “here is no water but only rock” is methodical and intense, expanding from a unison through raging multiphonics, microtonal rhapsody, and a furious finish.