Update Title: CB96D376-0323-41FF-8CA3-C28071937365

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The soprano saxophone had far fewer proponents in jazz’s classical era than either the alto or tenor, and the only name that comes to mind quickly is Sidney Bechet.  This has changed a great deal in the last few decades, and it helps that newer saxophones are considered better in tune and general construction than the old ones.   I’ve also found the soprano saxophone to be sensitive and expressive enough to play for instance my Aubade, which was written for the oboe.  It can cross the divide between classical and other music easily when asked.   I felt this concerto to be in a celebratory mood, as I feel I’m beginning to understand the band in a way I didn’t when only writing for orchestra.  In the last years I’ve been exploring the possibilities inherent in the band and can say with certainty that this whole concerto would have been far different had it been first conceived for orchestra, as were my Saxophone Concerto Grosso and Clarinet Concerto before their band versions appeared.    In an orchestral milieu, even with its growing credibility in the classical world, a soprano saxophone might feel a little like an ugly duckling (which after all will present itself at the end as a swan) as soloist; the meeting might thus be somewhat confrontational and dramatic in dialogue with the orchestra, opening its own wealth of musical possibilities.  In the band the soprano saxophone is totally at home and can converse with colleagues like the friendly discourse between piano and orchestra as in a Mozart concerto, and this pushes the dialogue into a more collegial direction and a very different mood.  Though I can conceive that a later orchestral version could be fine, I wanted this concerto to feel right now totally like a band piece.   There are three movements in this Concerto.  Lively, with humor contrasts the opening material featuring the high register of the saxophone with a more bluesy second theme in the lower part.    Serenade follows with a sort of South Seas rhythm-and-blues atmosphere.   Shimmy tosses itself between a jazz-type "head" with what customarily follows versus a 1960s early-rock-style hymn with 1930s echoes.  These two things together grow into an apotheosis, ending the concerto.

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