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

85 Appendix A. Interview with Howard Gourwitz and Joe Lulloff Conducted by Chet Jenkins March 11, 2018 in Cincinnati, Ohio JENKINS: Thank you again, both, I greatly appreciate it, for taking time. I guess I’d like to start just a little bit with the genesis of the work. How it came together. Kind of how it all came about. LULLOFF: Howard, you’ll have to help me with dates. I remember you talking about wanting to do this. The concerto was written in 2014. I think, it might be better to start with at least a little bit with the background of our relationship. As far as where we met. Maybe even before in concept I knew about Howard, from when Kevin Sedatole, the director of bands came and was interviewing for the position, and then he was offered the position. And at some subsequent meeting, you’d have to ask, I don’t even know if it is germane, but Kevin was up and I immediately. And I don’t know why this is. When you meet someone you have that kind of connection with that person sometimes. That really strong connection. That kind of person, as my dad would say, ‘I’d like to have a beer with.’ You know, on a regular basis, to start to become friends and whatnot. Well, Kevin and I kind of clicked in that regard as friends and colleagues. And we had so many similar interests, and Kevin, I think, liked the saxophone. He’s a force in our band field. He grew up with excellent saxophone playing, being from the state of Texas and then being students at the universities of, well he went to Stephen F Austin and of course at the University of Michigan where he was the marching band director, and oh, the University of Texas where he studied as well. So I think he had a really good ear for saxophone, and we started to talk about saxophone related things and whatnot. And he said, ‘I think I have somebody who I know that you would really like to meet, and this person’s name is Howard Gourwitz. And I can tell you we were walking down the hall of the band room when he said this. And I said, ‘I’d love to meet him.’ And then, he said I’m going to invite him up for a concert. He’s a lawyer in Detroit, and he was actually in my marching band at the University of Michigan. And I said, ‘Really?’ And he said ‘Yeah.’ He said ‘He’s a big Michigan alumni. And I’m going to leave Howard then to talk about this how you got involved in that. Because I think it’s germane to the kind of person that Howard is when you start thinking about (and I’m not sure the scope of how you want to get into this) but it might help clarify your language, your research language