The Red Clay Saxophone Quartet performed my composition “Off on a Tangent…” as part of the Society of Composers Inc. 50th anniversary national conference on November 13, 2015. The spirited performance was one of the best I have had in recent years. Bravo Red Clay! The Red Clay performance was recorded. I will post audio when it becomes available.
The SCI conference ran from November 12 – 14 and was hosted by the University of Florida School of Music., The entire Red Clay concert was excellent with additional works by Lansing D. McLoskey, Eric Fegan, Eric Honour, and Texu Kim.
The concert was a reunion of sorts. “Off on a Tangent…” was written for Red Clay. I worked with Red Clay member Susan Fancher at the University at Buffalo when I was completing my Ph.D. in music composition. At that time Susan was a member of the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, the resident quartet at UB. I was the assistant recording engineer so I recorded their recitals many times. We became friends and a few years later I wrote “Off on a Tangent…” for Red Clay when Susan and Mark moved to Greensboro, NC and the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet was formed. Also, Eric Honour was an undergraduate student at the University of Florida when I was a music theory teaching assistant there (I got my MM in composition from the University of Florida). Finally, the co-host of the conference, Dr. James Paul Sain (current president of SCI) was one of my composition teachers at UF and has remained an important mentor and colleague. At one point during the conference, Dr. Sain and I realized that we attended our first SCI conference together in Miami, FL 25 years ago. Where does the time go?