Dedication

Dedication

Description: 
Two dozen 20th birthday greetings for the yeoman sax folk
Composers: 
Roshanne Etezady
Zack Browning
Tim Ries
Gregory Wanamaker
Renee Favand-See
Libby Larsen
Nick Didkovsky
Greg Osby
Donnacha Dennehy
Ken Ueno
Adam B. Silverman
William Bolcom
Matthew Levy
Jennifer Higdon
Dennis DeSantis
Robert Capanna
Keith Moore
Jason Eckhardt
Frank J. Oteri
Perry Goldstein
Tim Berne
Chen Yi
James Primosch
Performers: 
PRISM Quartet
Timothy McAllister
Zachary Shemon
Matthew Levy
Taimur Sullivan
Greg Osby
Catalog Number: 
#800
Genre: 
new classical
new music
Collection: 
saxophone
political
Location: 

Philadelphia, PA

Price: 
$15.00
Release Date: 
May 31, 2011
1 CD
One Sheet: 

DEDICATION features music composed in celebration of the PRISM Quartet’s 20th anniversary by a slew of today’s top composers with a

knack for the sax. PRISM has expanded the world of the sax quartet through their commissions and performances since 1984. Their dedication has paid off with this virtuosic showcase of instrumental acrobatics.

PRISM musicians have wielded their instruments in a variety of styles and contexts, and they’ve done it with a gleeful disregard for the various “-isms” of the day. The saxophone is a versatile family of instruments, capable of great subtlety and emotion, but also perfectly good at producing a wailing wall of noise. And while PRISM has done yeoman work in reminding people that old Adolphe Sax intended his inventions to be classical instruments first, the quartet also has the good taste and the tasty chops needed to reflect the sax’s great tradition in jazz and popular music.

This collection brings together almost two-dozen works written or arranged to mark PRISM’s anniversary, back in 2004. The composers come from near (Philly-based Matthew Levy, founding member of PRISM) and far (Donnacha Dennehy, a central figure on the Irish new music scene). They range from some of our most highly visible, award-winning figures (William Bolcom, Chen Yi, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen) to emerging voices (Roshanne Etezady and Dennis DeSantis were both beginning their careers in 2004). And of course, there are friends of the ensemble like sax player Greg Osby, who adds his alto to the mix, and one-time PRISM member Tim Ries, who left the quartet some years ago to go on tour with a rock band. (Only time will tell if that band, apparently called “The Rolling Stones,” will have the staying power of the PRISM Quartet.)

From the frantic, florid playing required by Gregory Wanamaker’s “speed metal organum blues” to the melancholy of Renée Favand-See’s

“isolation,” this set of birthday dedications offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of one of the essential contemporary music groups of our

time.

Reviews: 

NEW MUSIC BOX
"[T]he PRISM Quartet plays with remarkable tightness … They not only handle the demands of the modern works with ease, but also exhibit a keen flexibility, making more traditional compositions … sound equally as convincing." [FULL ARTICLE]
Brian Sacawa