The Sound Ensemble Chamber Orchestra - KING FM 98.1 Live Performance

Program Notes

This piece was written as part of a collaboration between two contemporary music ensembles in two different countries: The Sound Ensemble in Seattle, USA and KammarensembleN in Stockholm, Sweden.  Swedish composer Marie Samuelson and I each wrote a piece for the occasion, both pieces to be premiered in the winter of 2022 in Seattle and Stockholm. 

I chose as the inspiration for my piece the Passacaglia in d minor by Swedish composer Dietrich Buxtehude, 1637-1707.  The city of his birth, Helsingborg, was originally part of Denmark but became part of Sweden in 1657.  The piece has been the source of variations by other composers, most notably Johann Sebastian Bach. The Passacaglia theme makes its appearance several times in Let There Be Sparrows, then; first heard in the vibraphone’s opening statement, later in the strings and brass. I also used fragments of the contrapuntal voices that occur through the Passacaglia, including use of repeated octaves and minor seconds. Sparrows diverges from the Passacaglia in the use of extended techniques, including bent notes in the vibraphone, indeterminate notes and rhythms at climactic points, and many timbral effects. 
In the Passacaglia, many things struck me: Buxtehude’s insistently repetitive minor 2nds (which I incorporated into the extended trumpet solo), the use of repeated octaves, surprising harmonies, and intricate counterpoint.  For my piece, I borrowed snippets of motives, compositional devices, and oddities that struck me Buxtehude’s piece, and then blended it with contemporary sensibilities.  The result is a tension between the ancient and the contemporary, between the consonance and dissonance, and even between how we often consider nature to be soothing, when in reality, it often is not.  These tensions are also reflected in the poem At The Solstice by Shaun O’Brien, which also served as inspiration for Let There Be Sparrows, then.  The poem explores the tension as winter turns to spring, and is the source of the title of my piece. 

At the Solstice  - Shaun O'Brien
 
We say Next time we’ll go away,
But then the winter happens, like a secret
We’ve to keep yet never understand
As daylight turns to cinema once more:
A lustrous darkness deep in ice-age cold,
And the print in need of restoration
Starting to consume itself
With snowfall where no snow is falling now.
Or could it be a cloud of sparrows, dancing
In the bare hedge that this gale of light
Is seeking to uproot? Let it be sparrows, then,
Still dancing in the blazing hedge,
Their tender fury and their fall,
Because it snows, because it burns.

Let There Be Sparrows, Then (2022)

Otis Murphy, alto saxophone
Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra
Julien Benichou, conductor
(Recording taken from the premiere performance, 4 Feburary 2025, Cordiner Hall, Walla Walla, WA.)

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra
2022
I. Deliberate.
II. Pensive, but not too slow.
III. Very lively, but not too fast.

Program Note:

Commissioned by the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra, with funding generously provided by Richard D. Simon, M.D., this Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra was completed on March 23, 2022, with the bulk of sketching and composing of the first movement done in 2021. The Concerto is dedicated to the WWSO and also to one of my favorite places, the beautiful city of Walla Walla, WA. Additional small revisions to the score were made in 2023 and 2024.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when concerts were canceled worldwide and all of my musician friends and I were abruptly out of work, I composed a series of short, unaccompanied pieces, entitled “Lyric Études,” for any musician who requested one. The idea was to nurture the musical relationships that we were all missing while live musical performances were impossible. The fifth of these, composed in 2020, is for saxophone. In many of these pieces, I already heard a latent potential in them to be expanded somehow into larger-scale compositions. Dr. Simon was so taken with Lyric Étude No. 5, that he decided to find a way for this idea to be realized, for me to compose a concerto for the WWSO making use of the themes and motifs from the fifth étude. I am extraordinarily grateful to him for his enthusiasm for my music, and for making this project happen!

In most concertos, the soloist is treated more or less as the protagonist of an imaginary narrative or conflict, and this concerto is no exception. While I often encourage the listener to imagine for themselves, if they wish, their own images or stories to accompany my music while they listen, it does seem worth sharing the dramatic concept I had in mind for this concerto from the earliest sketches. The first movement represents the soloist/protagonist in peril: a risky situation, freely accepted and undertaken. The soloist reveals great confidence and ability, but as the course of the movement proceeds the risk only increases, and the movement ends with a feeling of unresolved anxiety. The second movement represents the turning point of action; the soloist must look inward to find resolution. There is an epiphany, and the movement ends in an atmosphere of richly-earned calm. The third movement, then, might be described as none other than “time to party!” The difficulties overcome are not forgotten, but the music I hope conveys a sense of fun and ultimate acceptance.

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra - I. Deliberate.

Project Unity is a composition written for classical orchestral instruments, choirs, organ, electric guitar and bass, and an 80's synthesizer.  With this instrumentation, there is both a sense of unity throughout the piece, but also unity within diversity. Each major ensemble (instrumentalists, choir, percussion, and electric instruments) is featured throughout Project Unity, and the choral feature is meant to have us ponder and reflect on why we need unity in the world. Why is it important?

Musically, there are 3 themes you will hear throughout the piece. The major
seventh chord is used frequently in the unity theme, moving by mediants and
conveying change and the beauty that we can find within it. The second theme is
spearheaded by the synthesizer and electric instruments and the third by the
choir.

Project Unity, LIVE

we will never die

Ann Marie Yasinitsky, flute; Rajung Yang, piano
3/3/2016 Bryan Hall Theatre

I often find it helpful, or even necessary, to have a performer’s musical personality in mind when composing. At the time of composition, I had performed with my friend Ann for thirteen years, in the Solstice Quintet and the Washington Idaho Symphony, among several other ensembles over the years, and her musical personality is among the biggest and most distinctive of any flutist I have ever known. It was this, perhaps even more than her fabulous virtuosity on the instrument, that inspired me when she approached me to compose something for her, in her retirement year. There is literally not a note in this piece where I was not consciously thinking about my experience with, and deep appreciation for, Ann’s flute playing. 

The piece is in a single movement, with internal sections standing in for separate movements. It has an overall arch form, where earlier material reappears at the end, albeit not in a strictly symmetrical manner.

Sonatina for Flute and Piano (2016)

An excerpt of the third section of Meru: Tracing Earth, a work based on sonification of GPS data

Meru: Tracing Earth (Snowfill—Section 3)

An excerpt from the second section of Meru: Tracing Earth, a work based on sonification of GPS data.

Meru: Tracing Earth (Second Section: Ruby River)

compassion for piano solo

Sarah Bassingthwaighte, flute
Alejandra Reyes, guitar

Recorded in Puebla, MX November 2019

Evacaciones by Leonardo Coral

Suite Habana by Eduardo Martin

With a career spanning four decades, Dr. Sarah Bassingthwaighte is a Canadian-American composer and flutist who loves to play, teach and create music. She has received accolades in each of these roles in Iceland, England, Europe, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. The London Symphony Orchestra recorded Dr. Bassingthwaighte’s Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra in 2023, and a full album is in progress for 2025. Other notable performers include members of the Scottish Royal Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Port Angeles Symphony, and the Beaverton Symphony, and soloists including Megan Lanz, Jill Felber, Claudia Anderson, and Steve Schermer. In fall of 2022, Sarah performed the US Premiere of Marquez’ Danzon #3 with guitarist Alejandra Reyes Zamarano and the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. She will be Composer-in-Residence in Sweden, at the Visby International Centre for Composers (VICC)as well as at the Uncool Residency in Switzerland.  

Bassingthwaighte is the winner of many competitions, including the 2025 International Couperin Competition in Orchestral Music, the 2024 European Classical Music Awards in Orchestral Music, the Erik Satie International Competition in both Orchestral and Chamber Music, the International Saint-Saëns Competition in Composition in both Orchestral and Chamber Music, and a 2024 and 2025 Finalist for the American Prize. Her compositions also won the Newly Published Music Competition of the National Flute Association in 2013, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. She is the flutist for The Sound Ensemble, the Ecco Chamber Ensemble, and Windsong Classical Trio. She has served on the faculties of University of Washington, Seattle University, the Rachmaninov Institute in Tambov, Russia, the Seattle Youth Symphony, Music Center of the Northwest, and was Founding Director of Affinity Chamber Players during its 13-year lifespan. At the age of 18, she performed Jacques Ibert’s Concerto with the Seattle Symphony, and has since received numerous awards. Her solo CDs include Songs from the Caucasus, Stalks in the Breeze and Flute Meets Machine, and she and Mark Wilson recorded Around the World and Through Time as the ensemble Sirocco. 

The British journal Pan Magazine acclaims her “hypnotic and rich sound” and goes on to say “The tone quality is full of depth and power.  Bassingthwaighte seems to have a particular talent for communicating the message of contemporary pieces,” which are “performed with polish and virtuosity.” A past president of the Seattle Flute Society, Sarah has been a featured lecturer and performer for the National Flute Association, and a presenter at College Music Society conferences.  She actively commissions new pieces for solo flute or chamber ensembles, and has been responsible for the commission, performance, and recording of more than 36 new pieces. 

She has a DMA in flute performance and an MM in composition from the University of Washington, an MM in theory and pedagogy from Central Washington University, and a BM Honors in performance from Indiana University, Bloomington.  Her flute teachers include Carol Wincenc, Julius Baker, Peter Lloyd, James Pellerite, Felix Skowronek, Bonnie Blanchard and Hal Ott and her composition teachers include Richard Karpen, Diane Thome, John Mickel and Margaret Brouwer.  Bassingthwaighte is Head of Composition at Seattle Pacific University. Besides playing music, Sarah loves to hike and travel, especially with her son Izzy and her dog Bibi.  They’ve gone to Kenya, Uganda, Ecuador, Peru, Norway, Italy, Russia, Iceland, and more, in a spirit of adventure and broadening perspective.

Let There Be Sparrows, Then (2022)

Sarah L Bassingthwaighte

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