Pedro Iturralde was a Spanish saxophonist and composer, who gave his first public performance at the age of just eleven and went on to study at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid. After touring the Middle East and Germany he returned to Spain as the leader of a group of German jazz musicians. His experiments with fusions of flamenco and jazz led him to record several albums, including Flamenco–Jazz. He studied briefly at Berklee College of Music in the United States, and taught the saxophone at the Madrid Conservatory until 1994, while enjoying a career as a performer both in jazz and as a soloist with symphony orchestras. When he was 20 years old he composed the flamboyant Pequeña Czarda for alto saxophone. Originally orchestrated by his brother Javier, it is dedicated to his friend, the saxophonist, Theodore Kerkezos.
i A New Dance
ii Lady Day
iii The Mulberry Garden
iv Nobody’s Jig
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett was an English composer well known for his film scores and jazz performances as well as over 200 concert works. This setting of four country dances for soprano saxophone or oboe was written in New York in 2000 and dedicated to saxophonist John Harle and oboist Nicholas Daniel. The dances are arrangements of tunes taken from Playford’s Dancing Master which was a collection of 535 popular tunes for country dancing, published between 1651-1728 and edited by John Playford (1623-1686) amongst others. Richard Rodney Bennett’s arrangements are unmistakably his own, with the piano providing a beautiful accompaniment to these simple English melodies.
Soar is perhaps the first serious composition that I wrote for saxophone and piano. Originally composed for a competition run by the Clarinet and Saxophone Society, Soar also went on to become my first composition published by Saxtet Publications, with whom I now have over twenty publications.
i Prelude
ii Saltarelle
Robert Planel was a French composer, teacher and violinist and a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome. After the Second World War he became Inspector General of the City of Paris and in this time he helped to structure the musical training institutes of the city, including co-founding the conservatoires of the Paris Region.
Amy Quate is an American composer who works in a wide variety of musical styles, forms and media and who has published both musical and literary works. Light of Sothis was commissioned for the Seventh World Saxophone Congress held in Nuremberg, Germany, and is dedicated to Debra Richtmeyer, who premiered the work. Light of Sothis has since become a work popular both with professionals and students, setting two beautiful outer movements against the dramatic middle movement.
Claude Debussy is perhaps one of the most celebrated French composers in history and was one of the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum is taken from Children’s Corner, a set of six solo piano pieces that Debussy wrote between 1906 and 1908 and dedicated to his daughter Claude-Emma.
Andy Scott is a British saxophonist and composer equally at home in jazz and classical contexts. And Everything is Still is a beautiful melodic piece showcasing the expressive possibilities of the saxophone. In the words of the composer:
Jules Demersseman was friends with Adolphe Sax, creator of the saxophone, and wrote some of the first pieces ever written for the saxophone. It was because of his close friendship with Adolphe Sax that Demersseman wrote The Carnival of Venice for one of Sax’s students. Demersseman died at the age of 33 from tuberculosis.
Alastair Penman - Saxophone
Hailed as a “pioneering instrumentalist and writer” and praised for his “surpassingly beautiful music” and “undoubtedly brilliant mind”, saxophonist Alastair Penman is a dynamic and versatile performer and composer. Alastair is a City Music Foundation Artist, Park Lane Group Artist, BBC Introducing Artist, Live Music Now Artist, a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and has won awards from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, RNCM and St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Alastair is a Henri Selmer Paris and Vandoren UK performing Artist.
Jonathan Pease - Piano
Jonathan is an accomplished, versatile pianist, who studied with Graham Fitch. He offers particularly developed sight-reading and ensemble skills.
Piano Duo
26 October 2023
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