"Kana Mano" means "it is clever" in Shona. This matepe song has a haunting harmonic structure that has engendered itself to me as one of my favorite songs to play on this difficult but rewarding instrument. The song was learned from Andrew Tracey's celebrated transcriptions of matepe music from the 1960s, drawing upon styles that he heard from the legendary musicians Saini Madera and Saini Murira. It is one of the few matepe songs in which I believe I have found even a perfunctory degree of improvisational fluency, even though I am far from playing like the Sainis!

I am performing on a matepe that was built for me in 2011 by Sekuru Chaka Chawasarira, one of the last great matepe masters of Zimbabwe.

Photo credit goes to Rob DeVet, 2012.

Kana Mano

This is the fourth of five works for unaccompanied soprano saxophone that were composed as a cycle by American-born/French-domiciled composer Duncan Youngerman. His unaccompanied saxophone works frequently employ a means of "self-generated polyphony" in which no fewer than three strata of melodies are accentuated and delivered by a lone performer. The interlocking subtleties of the "submelodies" of thumb piano traditions of western and southern Africa come to mind, as do the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas composed by J.S. Bach.

Each F.M. Air is slightly different than the last in harmonic underpinnings, melodic content, and rhythmic activity. They certainly pose a feat of focus for a performance of just one movement, let alone the entire cycle! 

It is my privilege and honor to have given the world premiere of this complete cycle at a retrospective recital of Duncan Youngerman's saxophone works that was given in the Legacy Great Hall in Lubbock, Texas on May 2, 2012. This recording is a live recording from that recital.

F.M. Air 4 (from the F.M. Air cycle) (2012)

This is one of six works for saxophone duos that were composed as a cycle by American-born/French-domiciled composer Duncan Youngerman. Originally titled "Stan the Man" (as it is still titled in Jean-Marie Londeix's Comprehensive Guide to Saxophone Repertoire), it has since been retitled the "Splash Cycle" even though the original six works were all commissioned well before 2012 by the ARTE Quartett. Even though the six works can be performed individually, they can be deployed in "suite style" by a SATB saxophone quartet since the duos are written for the six possible two-saxophone combinations in an SATB quartet.

These duos make especially strict demands of rhythmic accuracy from their performers. Youngerman calls for rhythmic dissonances to be performed (usually) by the upper voice while the lower voice maintains a solid (and undeniably funky) groove. Emphasized dissonances, wide interval content, and a distinctly specific articulative palette further distinguish these six duos as an unfortunately neglected and compositionally masterful addition to the saxophone duo repertoire.

It is my privilege and honor to have given the U.S. premiere of this complete cycle at a retrospective recital of Duncan Youngerman's saxophone works that was given in the Legacy Great Hall in Lubbock, Texas on May 2, 2012. This recording is a live recording from that recital. For this particular duo I was performing the alto saxophone part with my friend and colleague Adam Camey on the baritone saxophone.

Tomorrow Man (from the "Splash Cycle") (2012)

This constitutes one of a series of experiments in vocal or instrumental multitracking in order to explore the multitude of compositions within the thirteenth-century medieval French manuscript dubbed the Montpellier Codex (Montpellier, Bibliothèque Inter-Universitaire, Section Médecine, H196).

This is a short triple motet from the second fascicle of the manuscript that carries a quadruplum, triplum, and motetus voice in medieval French over a short "Viderunt omnes" cantus firmus tenor in Latin. 

The index of the Hans Tischler edition of the Montpellier Codex from "Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance" lists the motet under the incipits:

Quadruplum: Viderunt. Por peu ne sui
Triplum: Viderunt. Por peu li cuers
Motetus: Viderunt. Par pou le cuer
Tenor: VIDERUNT OM[NES]

The four vocal tracks were recorded in my bedroom on a Zoom H2 recorder and were mixed with Audacity software.

Montpellier Codex (13th century): Triple motet with "Viderunt omnes" cantus firmus

Just testing the capabilities of Garage Band to accommodate the difficulties of recording oneself across five parts of Renaissance vocal polyphony. NBD.

Thomas Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah, Part II - Convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum

Additional test of Garage Band multitracking.

Thomas Tallis - Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter: 3. Why Fum'th in Fight (Psalm 2)

One of a collection of gorgeous motets from the fifth fascicle of the French 13th-century Montpellier Codex.

Mo 168 - Blanchete comme fleur; Quant je pens a ma douce amie; Valare

This motet is the shortest (in temporae) from the decidedly "subtilior" 14th-century Cypriot musical manuscript dubbed the Turin Codex (Codex Turin J.II.9) from the court of Janus of Cyprus.

Dignum Summo Patri; Dulciter Hymnos

This is the first of three sections from Johannes Ockeghem's lovely fifteenth-century setting of the Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo of the Ordinary of the Mass. These overdubbing exercises are getting more difficult each time! I'd like to think that the puzzles they pose for a musician singing every part are similar to the puzzles of notation, canon, and mensuration that were posed by Ockeghem himself to the singers of the Royal Chapel...

Johannes Ockeghem - Missa sine nomine (for five voices): Kyrie

Dr. Benjamin Robinette attained the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Saxophone Performance from Texas Tech University (TTU) in May 2013, where he served as the studio teaching assistant and in-house arranger to Professor David Dees. His studies and mentorship under Dr. Christopher Smith and Dr. Angela Mariani also garnered him a certificate in Early Music Performance Practice from TTU. He holds the Bachelor of Music degree in Saxophone Performance from The University of Tennessee in Knoxville (UTK) where he studied with Dr. Connie Frigo, and the Master of Music degree in Saxophone Performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), where he served as the studio teaching assistant to Professor Taimur Sullivan.

At UTK he won the university’s concerto competition twice, received the School of Music's award for woodwind performance excellence three times in a row, was awarded several outside performance scholarships, and had a soprano saxophone concerto written for him by David Pegel. At UNCSA, Robinette won the School of Music's concerto competition as well as the UNC-based Rosen-Schaffel Competition, which resulted in a performance of Alexander Glazunov's celebrated Concerto in E-flat with the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of Gerard Schwarz. Robinette also collaborated at this time with composer Duncan Youngerman on two newly-commissioned saxophone works: Stillicidium and Déjà.

Recently at TTU Robinette performed several successful conceptual recitals. A retrospective of Duncan Youngerman's saxophone works resulted in the world premieres of two complete cycles of his compositions: the Splash cycle (previously known as Stan the Man) and the F.M. Air cycle of unaccompanied soprano saxophone works. Robinette’s saxophone octet arrangement of György Ligeti's Hungarian Rock also inspired an all-saxophone arrangement of Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra for over 70 university and independent saxophonists from Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. 

In addition to the saxophone, Robinette is still actively involved in both the World Music and Early Music programs at TTU. Getting involved in vernacular music led Robinette to rekindle his interest in dance as well, joining the Tech Irish Set Dancers and participating most recently as a dancer and singer in the 2012 production Dancing at the Crossroads.

Due to a long-standing love of the Zimbabwean thumb piano styles of the mbira dzaVadzimu and the matepe (both of which he taught himself how to play), he founded and is currently leading the TTU Mbira Group, the first academic ensemble of its kind in the state of Texas—earning him the TTU Vernacular Music Center's annual scholarship. Outside of his academic activities, Robinette has also recorded a matepe DVD (the first of its kind!) entitled “Matepe Spirit” with his teacher Joel Laviolette.

His interest and pursuit of Early Music as a bass vocalist and as a researcher has encouraged Robinette to ponder fundamental questions about the nature of historically-inspired performance, leading to the creation of his latest project: Quartet Exordium. A saxophone quartet only in instrumentation, they explore repertoire of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in order to deliver performances of early music that excite modern audiences and challenge conceptions of how modern instruments can effectively transmit the music of the distant past. Their initial series of concerts involved the subtle but complex music of the Ars nova and Ars subtilior from the late 14th and early 15th centuries, culminating in their appearance as featured guests of the TTU Early Music Ensemble in January 2013. In March 2013 on Easter Sunday they recorded a compact disc featuring a liturgically accurate four-saxophone adaptation of Renaissance composer Johannes Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum. Additionally, this recording supplements Robinette's doctoral thesis entitled “Interlocutio: A Process for Performing Renaissance Vocal Polyphony on Saxophones.” 

Robinette currently lives and works in Lubbock, Texas with his fiancée Melody and their two cats Loki and Belle. During his downtime he enjoys singing complicated Medieval and Renaissance music (as well as not-so-complicated catches and glees), trying new restaurants and coffee shops, baking desserts, reading science fiction and magical realism novels, and adventuring across the country.

Benjamin Robinette

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