love songs for the broken
(2022)
joy reappears (after Kari Edwards)
i will not comb my hair (after Hitomaro)
I’m standing in a bath tub (after Frank O’Hara)
Feet! feet! (after Frank O’Hara)
Locking me to you (after Thom Gunn)
Wild nights! (After Emily Dickinson)
for soprano saxophone and string ensemble
Written for Britten Sinfonia on their 30th birthday, as part of the Magnum Opus programme
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Rob Burton (soprano saxophone), Britten Sinfonia, and William Cole (conductor) on 15 October 2022 at St. Giles Cripplegate, London (England, UK)
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for Rob Burton and Britten SInfonia.
These 'songs' for soprano saxophone and string ensemble gives voice to the queer love story - be it one of passion, absurdity, repentance, or sorrow. Each short movement takes its name from a poem written by a queer poet from history, illustrating the often hidden and secret love of queer people. From seeing a sunlit lover in bed Kari Edwards’ [the day shifts…], to young love and the despair of rejection in Frank O’Hara’s ‘Mayakovsky’. The one exception being that of 7th-century, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, where we have no idea whether he was queer but the fluidity and universality in his haiku has always spoken to me. Although initially set out as being a ‘concerto’ for saxophone, this work has developed into a series of snapshots into the intimacy and crystalline effervescence of the soprano saxophone.
-njd.
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soprano saxophone, strings (minimum 1.1.1.1.1)
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15’
