Recorded at Tarleton State University May 2024 Ben Charles, session producer Derek Granger, audio and video editing 1. Driving to Paris (0:00) 2. A Bend in the River (1:29) 3. Bal Musette (3:47) 4. Vermouth (5:24) 5. A Tense Discussion (6:49) 6. Making Up (9:34) 7. The Ride Back to Town (10:54) Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Ned Rorem is best known for his over 500 art songs, though he composed in nearly all genres. He mostly resisted the modernist aesthetic trends embraced his contemporaries by writing music which was generally tonal. Rorem was deeply influenced by French music, especially the composers who comprised Les Six. He wrote Picnic on the Marne in 1984 on a commission from Concert Artists Guild for the British saxophonist John Harle, who with pianist John Lenehan premiered the work on February 14, 1984 in Carnegie Hall. Picnic on the Marne, a suite of seven contrasting waltzes, is a musical recollection of an afternoon in the composer's younger years. In its program note, Rorem writes, "On June 30th, 1956, I visited the southeastern suburbs of Paris with another person. These pieces recollect that afternoon, 109 seasons later." In addition to composing, Rorem was also an avid writer and diarist, acerbically chronicling his experience as a gay man in the 1950s and beyond–decades in which to be out at all was almost universally illegal. From this we know that other "person" was one Claude Bénédick. Years hence, Rorem rancorously addresses Bénédick in The New York Diary (1967): "Sweet memories will always be soiled by your action.... Loving afternoons on the banks of the Marne before we met are preferable now." The programmatic titles of the waltzes depict Rorem and Bénédick's ultimately ill-fated afternoon along the banks of the Marne. Its first three waltzes portray a frenetic kind of optimism. The fourth, "Vermouth" (marked "dangerously slow, muffled, and blue"), precipitates the suite's climax in "A Tense Discussion," a confrontation between the hot-headed saxophone and cooly detached piano, which is followed by a rushed "Making Up," and closes reflectively with "The Ride Back to Town." ©Derek Granger

Live performance on Hartt by Heart with Heart recital, The Hartt School, 2021

1. Eintritt (Entry) 00:14 2. Jäger auf der Lauer (Hunters on the Lookout) 2:21 3. Einsame Blumen (Lonely Flowers) 4:06 6. Herberge (Wayside Inn) 5:59 7. Vogel als Prophet (Bird as Prophet) 8:07 8. Jagdlied (Hunting Song) 11:15 Alaina Chester, oboe Jung Kyu Song, clarinet Derek Granger, saxophone Chad Thomas, bass clarinet Morgan Pope, bassoon Artwork credits (all in public domain): Caspar David Friedrich - The Chasseur in the Forest Unknown - Hunting scene Martin Heade - Orchids and Hummingbirds Shayer Sr William - A Halt at the Inn Karl Spitzweg - Le Corbeau Paolo Uccello - The Hunt in the Forest

Live performance on Hartt at Home virtual and in-person recital, The Hartt School, 2021

Recorded live in Auer Hall, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, 2018 Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

"En espérant voir passer une caravane festive, délinguée, ébouriffée" ("In the hope of seeing a festive, ramshackle, disheveled caravan go by") This performance is the North American premiere of "Target" from the 2020 NASA Region 8 Virtual Conference. https://www.luisnaon.com Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

For a quick sample check out Blues at 13:40 and Swing Tune at 16:28. But please listen to all of this brilliant performance! For scrolling score and performance video: https://youtu.be/6VQGuNilA2I Don Freund's EDGE Saxophone Quartet from March 2, 2019 recital, IU Jacobs School of Music, Auer Hall. Empyrean Saxophone Quartet Derek Granger, soprano Catelyn Hawkins, alto Wesley Taylor, tenor Paul Cotton, baritone March 2, 2019/Auer Hall, IU Jacobs School of Music.  EDGE: Saxophone Quartet was commissioned by Allen Rippe for the Memphis Saxophone Quartet. Its ambitious scope is based on the assumption that the medium of the saxophone quartet has been around long enough to aspire to the artistic depth of string quartets by Ligeti, Lutoslawski and Zorn. The "edge" idea is to be felt in all kinds of ways: for examples, the rough edge of torn paper, the gleaming edge of a blade, the piercing edge of a laser, the edge which separates contrapuntal voices, the perceptual edge between conflicting musical styles, the twilight between light and darkness, the thin edge between existence and nothingness. The form of the work is sectional, exploiting various kinds of edges between sections. Here is a little sectional guided tour: Schizo-intro 00:12; riveting repeating notes 01:33; clockworks 03:00; gigue-motet 05:08; four-voice style-canon stew 07:11; filigree chorale 08:55; blocks of contrasts 11:21; sixteenths city  12:28; blues 13:40; swing-tune 16:28; minimal E-D-G-E 18:23; ghost melody 19:00.

"Wood Song for soprano saxophone (2021), originally for oboe (2019), was inspired by the Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) poem of the same name. I was particularly drawn to this poem for both the reference to the wood thrush bird as well as the poet’s honesty of kissing life “scars and all”. The colors of the oboe lend themselves to creating this bird’s ethereal and mysterious sounds, and of telling the journey of a soul through poem and music. Among the many unique sounds made by this bird includes the 'pit volley'. This sound is represented in the work by five quick repeated notes in a row punctuating the moment as the wood-thrush does in the forest. Variations on other unique sounds from the wood thrush’s repertoire are represented by both timbral and regular trills, fast rhythmic leaping lines, and, at times, the lyrical singing of a lone bird in the woods. In remaining true to both the bird’s call as well as the poet’s description of it, the very opening of the work begins with a transcription of one of these birds’ songs 'twirling three notes'. Throughout the work there is much freedom given to the oboist to explore creating the song of the wood thrush. Listen for variations and interpretations on their unique song." This work (oboe version) was commissioned by Dr. Lindabeth Binkley with a Faculty Research and Creative Endeavors Grant from Central Michigan University. This is the premiere of the soprano saxophone version, arranged by the composer, from the 2022 International Conference for Saxophone Pedagogy and Performance. https://www.jennibrandon.com Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

Sheet music available from C. Alan Publications (https://c-alanpublications.com) https://skarukas.com/#/ Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

Luciano Berio was born in Oneglia, Italy in 1925. His father and grandfather, both organists and composers, gave him his musical start as a pianist. Berio was conscripted into the army during WWII, where he injured his hand, leading to his eventual turn to composition after the war. Through his studies with Dallapiccola, Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti, among others, Berio became interested in serialism and electronic music. His award-winning compositional output includes music for orchestra, voices, stage works, electro acoustic works, transcriptions of his and others’ works, and the virtuosic Sequenze. Berio passed away in 2003. The Sequenze are a collection of 14 solo works, composed over 38 years. Each work tests and exploits the technical and acoustical limits of the instrument or voice it was written for. The Sequenze are virtuosic, though sheer virtuosity was not their aim. Berio stated that the ideal interpreter of this music bears “...above all, a virtuosity of knowledge,” implying that the technical difficulty exists to serve the musical structure of the works. The Sequenza IXb is Berio’s own transcription of Sequenza IX, written for clarinet in 1980. He says of the work: “Sequenza IX...is essentially a long melody implying - like almost every melody - redundancy, symmetries, transformations and returns. Sequenza IX is also a “sequence” of instrumental gestures developing a constant transformation between two different harmonic fields: a seven-note one (F sharp, C, C sharp, E, G, B flat and B natural) appearing always in the same register, and a five-note one appearing in ever-different registers. The latter penetrates, modifies and comments on the harmonic functions of the first seven-note field.” (notes by Derek Granger) Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

Alaina Chester, oboe Jung Kyu Song, clarinet Derek Granger, saxophone Chad Thomas, bass clarinet Morgan Pope, bassoon

Grammy-winning contemporary American composer Joan Tower has been lauded by The New Yorker as “one of the most successful woman composers of all time.” She wrote Second Flight in 2017 as a sequel to Wings (1981), which was originally for solo clarinet, and she later transcribed for saxophone. Tower’s inspiration for both works comes from the imagery of flying. She was inspired once again “…to think of something powerful that flies high and wide above a large landscape.” Second Flight is a series of contrasting vignettes, each with its own feeling and tonal language. Many are chromatic, while others have an Impressionistic tonal language, with moods ranging from serene to manic. (notes by Derek Granger) Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

The Hartt Omni-Ensemble performs Urban Requiem by Michael Colgrass Hartt Omni-Ensemble, directed by Glen Adsit Recorded December 14th, 2019 Ma'at Quartet Derek Granger, soprano saxophone Andrew MacRossie, alto saxophone Brandon Nowakowski, tenor saxophone Joseph David Spence, baritone saxophone For more information about the Hartt Saxophone Studio please visit: bit.ly/harttsax

Cindy McTee’s Timepiece was originally an orchestral work commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2000, for its 100th Anniversary Season. In 2012, this adaption for alto saxophone and pre-recorded sounds was created by Kathryn Swanson, on a commission from saxophonist Carrie Koffman. The title Timepiece refers not only to the occasion and timing of its premiere, but also to musical time. A slow beginning is followed by a driving fast section, which is fueled by a clock-like pulse with tightly-constructed pitch and rhythmic structures. Ultimately, McTee writes, “Discipline yields to improvisation, and perhaps most importantly, humor takes its place comfortably along side the grave and earnest.” (notes by Derek Granger) https://www.cindymctee.com Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!

"Move your shade to a vast sky..." Co-commissioned as part of the 2019 Japanese Saxophone Commission Project, led by Nathan Mertens Please like and subscribe! More music, free arrangements and more are available at https://www.derekgrangermusic.com. Thanks for listening!