Month: July 2023

There is some exciting news regarding Stephen Dankner’s Saxophone Concerto! There is now a wind band version of this wonderful work—making it more accessible to a wider variety of ensembles. This monumental piece deserves wider dissemination among the saxophone community due to its accessible neo-Romantic musical language and melodic sensibility.

Along with this new version of the Concerto, I will be writing an article about this piece—discussing not only the musical language and performance history, but also differences between the recorded version and the published version. I’m very excited to write about a work and composer that I’m passionate about. Stay tuned for updates!

Since 2020, I have been rewriting and revising a project that I began in 2003 during my master’s degree program at SUNY Fredonia. At that time, I started work on a research project based on the saxophone music of my first teacher, Dr. Laurence Wyman. I studied with Dr. Wyman for the first half of my bachelor’s degree program, and I credit him with introducing me to the Rascher tradition of saxophone playing. The impact that that has had on me is nothing short of life-altering.

My initial research paper barely scratched the surface of Wyman’s work, so I’m very excited to share this newly updated/expanded article with the saxophone community. After substantial rewrites and revisions, as well as a few rounds of editing from the editorial board of The Saxophone Symposium, I’m happy to report that this article was accepted for publication in the 2023 issue. It is my sincere hope that this article spawns some interest in Dr. Wyman’s contributions and that other saxophonists will begin programming his music and utilizing his pedagogical texts.

Along with the article, I am in the pre-production stage of preparing a commercially available recording of his music. All six extant pieces will be professionally recorded and accompanied with program notes provided by me. I am very excited for the culmination of this project—it has truly been a labor of love for me over the past 20 years.