A Conductor’s and Performer’s Guide to Steven Bryant’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone - Chester Jenkins

110 JENKINS: Well, I understand that. Because I think it’s an amazing piece of music. But you’re so inextricably tied into it, is what I’m saying. Your voice is. LULLOFF: I appreciate that. And that’s an interesting thing. Maybe that’s what makes the Franck Sonata work, because it was written for Ysaÿe, a gift to Ysaÿe. Maybe his voice was written in that piece. Or maybe there’s other piano pieces written for great pianists or what not. I feel honor with that. But I want people to find their voice. I think it’s possible for people to find their voice in music. And that they can find their jazz voice in this, or their true voice in this, as much as I’ve found mine. LULLOFF: And somebody said, this is really written for you and only for you. Yeah, but God, get this piece out. Steven Banks did a brilliant job. Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant job of this piece. JENKINS: I just watched his performance the other night on YouTube. LULLOFF: And I loved it. My YouTube, by the way, of the Navy Band will be out. JENKINS: Oh cool LULLOFF: I’ve just been waiting to put it out. I didn’t want it to overshadow Steven’s. I just want to wait. I think I’ll put it out on my birthday or something. Or maybe on the birthday of this piece which would have been four years this year. So maybe that’s what I’ll do. And celebrate that when, April, 20 th ? GOURWITZ: 22 nd LULLOFF: 22 nd . And the Navy Band has given me permission to do so. But I’m going to talk to Dana Booher, just to make sure we’re good. I think the point here is, it really is a piece to get the performer to reach for their next voice in their performance life. It’s not just my voice. I think it’s got legs, but it’s taken a little while. There was only a two year exclusivity or something like that. GOURWITZ: You played it a lot. LULLOFF: I played it like a dozen times. JENKINS: I love Steven’s writing, it was one of the reasons I wanted to research this. The Acton Ossling dissertation on pieces of serious artistic merit for wind ensemble. It’s this dissertation from the 70’s and there have been a couple of iterations on it. And the Dahl and the Husa are the two saxophone concerti that continue to show up on this list of significant, worthy works. And, digging through this, and seeing the architecture and the structure and the intricacy in the way that he uses that motive and that chord progression. I feel like this piece deserves to, 15 to 20 years from now….I hope it gets enough