“With Oakleaf Crowns Shadowing Their Brows” for tenor saxophone and string quintet

In this piece, I have sought to combine notions of consonance and dissonance in music, taking inspiration from the harmonically exploratory work of jazz musicians Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and Late Romantic composers Arnold Schoenberg and Gustav Mahler, among others. All utilize the chromatic scale as a basis for tonality, treating every note as available for use within a progression or melody. Just so, this piece is written in the key of G-minor, there are a variety of chords present in it which have no theoretical place in such – augmented and diminished chords, or non-diatonic chords. They complement the key just as any chord traditionally considered within the key would. I have also incorporated into the piece styles idiomatic of both jazz and classical music, specifically improvisation regarding the former, and various counterpoint techniques regarding the latter.

I have intended the saxophone to function both as a solo instrument and sixth member of the string quintet, creating dynamic, interactive lines in tandem with them while carrying the piece’s melody.

The piece’s title is a quote from Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the protagonist Aeneas is prophesied to found Roman Civilization by the ghostly shade of his father. It is an acknowledgement of the music’s heavily expressive, dynamic (“epic”) nature.

Tenor Saxophone: Leo Yablans

Violin: Clara Kim, Giancarlo Latta

Viola: Carrie Frey

Cello: Mosa Tsay

Double Bass: Austin Lewellen

Recorded at Douglass Recording, Brooklyn, NY, November 2021

Engineer: Peter Karl