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

90 So anyway, I said yes. And I did commission that piece. It’s been played all over the world, literally. JENKINS: Yeah. GOURWITZ: There’s lot of YouTube’s Kevin’s shown me of award winning bands in Europe playing it. So, that leads us along the way. Joe said to me one night after a concert back at Michigan State. ‘I love Steven Bryant’s writing. I would love it if someday he could write a piece for me. A concerto. LULLOFF: I don’t say that often. GOURWITZ: I’d never heard Joe say that. And he didn’t say it to me other than that we were good friends. I just put it in the back of my mind. That led us to Indianapolis. American Bandmasters Association. LULLOFF: Just about Indianapolis. Just prior to Indianapolis. Kevin asked me a similar kind of question. Just making sure of where my mind was. I can’t remember how he put it. I’m sorry, I’m not as clear on details. I tried to think about this since we spoke… JENKINS: Sure LULLOFF: So much runs through my mind. It’s just the way I am I guess sometimes. I do remember the time, I could put myself in the office and could tell you what time of day. I can’t remember his exact words, but he said, basically, ‘What do you think about a concerto? And who would write it?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Well, you’ve mentioned people’ and I mentioned to Kevin many times you know, ‘This guy would write a good saxophone concerto.’ Or ‘This woman would write a good work for the saxophone. Concerto or whatever.’ And, I said, I’d mentioned several names, I wasn’t even thinking at that time, but I said, in the end, I think I might have mentioned John Mackey, an alto concerto. We’d already done the Bill Bolcolm Concert Suite at Midwest back in 2007 was it? Maybe. Along this time frame, after the meeting Howard described, and by the way at that meeting, it clicked to me on the way, during our conversation, this was the person Kevin was speaking about. And Kevin had also briefed me before ‘He has a collection of saxophones that you would just die to see.’ He said, ‘He’s really an enthusiast.’ He said, ‘You guys have the same kind of interests.’ Which, I have many saxophones. I’m not a collector per se. I’m a performer who likes to have the instruments to be able to perform with. Where Howard, did perform on saxophone. But you’re, am I correct in saying, you’re not playing concerts and so on and so forth. But you do like to have the instruments. GOURWITZ: Yeah, I try to make a nice collection.