PERIPETEIA
Commissioned by Emily McGovern
for alto saxophone | 15’ 30” | 2023
Instrumentation - Solo Alto Saxophone | Piano
Premiered on February 23rd, 2024 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by Emily McGovern.
difficulty
Moderate
(Techniques used include slap-tongue, pitch bending, growling and controlled vibrato)
Program Notes
PERIPETEIA is the product of a collaboration - that was a long time coming - between myself and my friend, and insanely talented saxophonist, Emily. We spoke at length about exactly what this piece should be, and should speak on. Emily was open with me regarding some of her own lived experiences, and I was in the midst of living through some of my own. Something poignant we both resonated with was the idea of how unpredictable, lamentable, and self-conflicting our lives can be. How our relationships with others can change with a word, how our connections can cause so much self-pity and reflection on ourselves.
The piece itself is inspired by Emily’s lived experience, as well as from the text from poetry by John Gould Fletcher of the same title. A change in fortune, a reflection on connection, and finding one’s place.
Peripeteia - John Gould Fletcher
I can no longer find a place for myself:
I go.
There are too many things to detain me,
But the force behind is reckless.
Noise, uproar, movement
Slide me outwards,
Black sleet shivering
Down red walls.
In thick jungles of green, this gyration,
My centrifugal folly,
Through roaring dust and futility spattered,
Will find its own repose.
Golden lights will gleam out sullenly into silence,
Before I return.
take a look inside!
Video performance not yet available, check back in later!