Fire In Heaven and Earth
Albany Records (TROY1267)
Wayne Tice, soprano saxophone; James McCain, alto saxophone; Dave Pope, tenor saxophone; Brian Sacawa, baritone saxophone
Ted Wiprud: Saxophone Quartet
In the summer of 2009 we put together a crack saxophone quartet of Wayne Tice on soprano, James McCain on alto, Dave Pope on tenor, and myself on baritone to record Ted Wiprud‘s saxophone quartet. We had an intense weekend of rehearsals and capped it off with about 5 hours in a Brooklyn, NY recording studio. It was a pleasure and extremely rewarding to play with such sensitive musicians.
Ted Wiprud: Saxophone Quartet
Purchase: Amazon / Albany Records
American Voices
Innova Recordings (Innova 675)
Brian Sacawa, alto and baritone saxophones; Wenli Zhou, piano; DJ Dubble8, turntables
Philip Glass: Piece in the Shape of a Square
Lee Hyla: Pre-Amnesia
Erik Spangler: pastlife laptops and attic instruments
Christopher Theofanidis: Netherland
Derek Hurst: Bacchanalia Skiapodorum
Keeril Makan: Voice Within Voice
Michael Gordon: The Low Quartet
I started thinking about making this album in 2004 when I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. I knew that I didn’t want to make the typical classical saxophone album—a potpourri of standard literature spanning the saxophone’s history with the token contemporary piece thrown in to round it out. I’ve always been a bit more of a universalist. I was interested in putting out a CD that reflected my belief system and reached beyond what had become accepted as the boring norm for classical saxophone albums. I wanted music by American composers who were relevant as well as by those whose voices I felt needed to be heard.
The Low Quartet by Michael Gordon / arr. Sacawa
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Purchase: iTunes / Amazon / Innova
Earthshine
BiBimBop Records
Brian Sacawa, alto saxophone
Beata Moon: 1, 2, 3
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I first heard about Beata in March of 2002. I was in a Borders book store in Columbia, MD and happened to pick up a copy of the Village Voice, which had a review of a recent concert of Beata’s music. I liked what the review said so as was my custom with composers whom I didn’t know but thought their music sounded cool, I emailed Beata and asked her if she’d write me a piece. Much to my surprise, she said of course, however she didn’t know much about the saxophone and wanted a demonstration. The “demonstration” occurred in her NYC apartment and consisted of my performing Stockhausen’s In Freundschaft for her, managing miraculously not to knock anything over in the process. I’m not sure what she thought of Stockhausen, but I assume she liked the saxophone. A few months later, I had a work by Beata, 1, 2, 3. The piece is cool, funky, rhythmic, energetic, flowing, and sincere; the names of the movements as well as characteristics of the composer. I was honored when Beata asked me to record the piece. The session was in the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center, complete with a camera crew filming the entire thing for a feature program about Beata that ran on ArtsPass Live!.
Songs of Innocence and Experience
Naxos (8.559216-18)
Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Christine Brewer, Measha Brueggergosman, Ilana Davidson, Nmon Ford, Nathan Lee Graham, Joan Morris, University Musical Society, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra
William Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and Experience
William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience date from the turbulent period in English and American history when the United States was in its infancy. Occupying 25 years of William Bolcom’s compositional life, his “musical illuminations,” inspired by Blake’s own wide panoply of poetic styles in the cycle, travel thrillingly from intense dissonance to folk, rock, and reggae to encompass the breadth of the Blakean spiritual universe.
Purchase: Naxos Direct / Amazon / CD Universe
Tompkins County Organic: Homegrown Beats, Vol. 1
DJ Dubble8, Self-Released
Brian Sacawa, alto saxophone; DJ Dubble8, turntables
Erik Spangler: pastlife laptops and attic instruments
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Shortly after the first performance of pastlife laptops and attic instruments Erik called to ask if there was a recording and was it any good. He was putting together an album of DJ work he’d done while living in Ithaca, NY. Of course we had a recording and it was decent—a rough mix of the dry board feed and a pair of stereo mics we threw up in the center of the room to catch the sound of the space. This is the same live performance of pastlife laptops that appears on American Voices, though a more raw mix, which captures differently the energy and excitement from what was a very special performance.
Purchase: CD Baby
Collaborations
Equilibrium (CD66)
Larry Teal Saxophone Quartet (Christopher Blossom, soprano sax; Brian Sacawa, alto sax; Bobby Streng, tenor sax; Erik Rönmark, baritone sax); University of Michigan Symphony Band; Michael Haithcock, conductor
Michael Colgrass: Urban Requiem
I was fortunate to arrive at the Unviersity of Michigan for graduate school at the same time as three other guys who were interested in having a serious saxophone quartet—Chris Blossom, Bobby Streng, and Erik Rönmark. In the two years we played together we had a lot of fun, learned a lot of really difficult music inside and out, and were given some really wonderful performance opportunities. Performing and recording Michael Colgrass’s Urban Requiem with the University of Michigan Symphony Band was one of those opportunities. The performance on the album is the live, unedited recording from our performance at the State Theater in Ann Arbor.
The Story of This Place: Charm City Remix
Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
Erik Spangler, composer/producer; Hybrid Groove Project
JFX Bari Loop
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The Story of This Place is a series of site-specific narratives that offer a portable audio soundtrack that guides the listener through a site with a fictional narrative inspired by real stories of the place’s inhabitants. They are fully realized only when experienced on foot by viewers in the original context, though the recording is also expected to drift through the circuits of personal audio into places far afield from this original view. Charm City Remix is a set of narratives produced for the Mt. Vernon District of Baltimore, Maryland in 2008.
Music for Chamber Winds
The U.S. Army Field Band
Brian Sacawa, alto saxophone; The United States Army Field Band; Captain Paul Bamonte, conductor
Jacques Ibert: Concertino da Camera
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I’ve had a very long relationship with Jacques Ibert’s Concertino da Camera. During my college years it was the staple “classical” saxophone composition in my repertoire and my “go to” piece for any and all competitions and auditions that I did. I probably practiced the piece more than any person in their right mind ought to and as a result I could probably still play the entire thing from memory if asked. (N.B. This is not a challenge!) So it was fitting that “the Ibert” was the first solo I ever played with The U.S. Army Field Band after winning the position in 1999. I’ll never forget the recording session. We’d been home from the band’s 2001 fall concert tour—the tour on which I’d performed the solo—for a few weeks. I assumed we’d be recording the work in a few months so I hadn’t touched the music since tour. Then one Sunday night I received a phone call from Captain Paul Bamonte, who’d conducted the piece on tour. Guess what, he said, we have to record the piece tomorrow morning! Um, okay, yes, sir. So the following morning at 9 a.m. we laid down this performance with no rehearsal.
January 8, 2012
55.59 Mile in 03:04:22
