By David Sanford | For Woodwind Quintet | 10′

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From the composer:

Along with a very small number of listeners, I’ve always found Miles Davis’s notoriously “ugly” (live electronics in Carnegie Hall) 1974 album Dark Magus musically fascinating and sonically inspirational in the way that it creates surreal soundscapes through analog means, and particularly in a hall that ordinarily resists or rejects such distortions. One component of these textures is the saturation of warped electric timbres that renders three guitars, two saxophones and one trumpet nearly indiscernible. In the case of Davis, I have heard this as a significant step toward his musical exile of 1976-80, but also – as he insists – a form of third stream fusion between contemporary rhythm and blues (itself fused with acid rock in that fertile era) and the 1960s sonic essays of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Somewhat in the spirit of the 2003 film The Five Obstructions by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, I am challenged by the idea of creating a similarly charged and homogenous soundscape using woodwind quintet, likely the most disparate timbres of a traditional chamber ensemble. 

Tatu, for woodwind quintet, was commissioned by Zéphyros Winds in 2018 with funding from Chamber Music America. The group premiered the work August 29, 2018 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Grenada, Spain.

Commission/Dedication: Commissioned by Zéphyros Winds with funding from Chamber Music America.
Premiere: First performed August 29, 2018 at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Grenada, Spain by Zéphyros Winds.