Programme Notes – Long Distance Call (2022)

In 2020 the Australian French Saxophonist and composer Katia Beaugeais asked me to write her a work for solo saxophone. As well as the challenging distance between our homes (10,567 miles between Manchester and Sydney) the advent of the pandemic made remote communication during the creative process a total necessity! So, during the many valuable zoom sessions I would hear Katia demonstrate embryonic ideas with all the questionable sound quality that was available at the time. Happily, I was able to work with Katie in a subsequent trip she made to the UK and I think we both celebrated the joys of working face to face again!

 

As well as referring to the means of communication during the work’s genesis the title of the piece is also reflected in the fanfare like invocation at the start which I imagined being heard over a vast space of terrain.

Long Distance Call is around 12 minutes in length and is in six sections:

 

Opening Invocation,

Alla Marcia,

Andantino Siciliano,

Scherzo – Presto,

Aria, Lento,

Passacaglia with a late return to the opening to give the work a triumphant end.

 

Long Distance Call was conceived for soprano sax, but I hope might work well on other saxophones as well.