Dedicated to promoting and preserving the very best of classical and contemporary saxophone literature
Our Composers
John Aylward's music has been praised for its youthful energy and precision. In line
with his mentors David Rakowski, and George Tsontakis, Aylward is quickly paving
a new path of sophisticated and emotional American modernism. Aylward's latest
works entertain experimental harmonic and textural concepts while not sacrificing
rigorous technique or rhythmic vitality.
Aylward's music has been performed within the U.S and abroad by numerous ensembles including the New York New Music Ensemble, The Lydian String Quartet, Third Angle, The Bard Symphony Orchestra, Juventas, and The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. His work has also been championed by internationally touring soloists Chris Finkel, Steven Gosling, Christopher Oldfather, Elizabeth Keusch, Karina Sabac and Daria Binkowski.
Aylward has received grants and awards for his compositions from numerous national institutions including the Wellesley Composer Conference, the MacDowell Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Society of Composers. In 2007, Aylward won the Composition Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music.
Aylward is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Clark University in Massachusetts. Before his post at Clark, Aylward taught at Tufts University and at Brandeis University. John lives in Boston, Massachusetts and is originally from Tucson, Arizona.
After a spending many years as a freelance bassist, composer/arranger, and producer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kip Haaheim received his Bachelor’s degree from California State University, Hayward; his Masters degree in composition from the University of Minnesota; and his Doctorate in composition from the University of Arizona. His discography includes an eclectic mix of styles Jazz, World Music, Rock, and Avant Garde. These days he is primarily a composer on the faculty of the University of Kansas in Lawrence Kansas. Kip has far ranging interests in music composition and his work is a synthesis of eclectic influences from Olivier Messiaen and Georgy Ligeti to The Beatles, Trent Reznor, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
In recent years Kip Haaheim has specialized in the field of electro-acoustic music and sound design and is particularly interested in collaborative work. His 2002 Summit Records DVD release “Sacred and Profane” features digital music in full surround-sound audio with digitally processed video. Within the field of electro-acoustic music he is interested in using “real world” sound in unusual and innovative ways. Kip’s creative tendencies often involve multi-media and he has worked with numerous choreographers and other artists on productions with dancers and mixed visual media. He has also done music, audio, and sound design for interactive installations, live electro-acoustic performances, and internet-based “webcasts.”
He has had major works performed (or in the case of interactive work – installed) in San Francisco, Eugene, Houston, New York, Santa Fe, Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin and many other places in the United States. He has had works performed internationally in Lubeck, Toronto, Mexico City, Paris, and Tel Aviv.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Composition on the faculty at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS.
Drew Krause has written over 80 works for instrumental and electronic media. His music is published by Frog Peak and has been recorded by Innova, Capstone, New Ariel, Frog Peak, Pogus, and Bonk Records. He has received grants from Harvestworks, The MacDowell Colony, The Wurlitzer Foundation, and Meet the Composer, and residencies at Stanford University and Brooklyn College. He studied composition at Juilliard (MM) and the University of Illinois (DMA), was a founding member of the Thump Piano Duo, and is the author of the extensive Common Lisp Composer’s Library for algorithmic music composition. He lives and works in New York City.
Jonathan B. McNair’s music has been performed by members of the Cleveland Orchestra, Sirius Ensemble, Myriad Ensemble, Epicycle Ensemble, the Wichita New Music Ensemble, Spivey Hall Children’s Choir, the Smoky Mountain Chorale, Choral Arts of Chattanooga, as well as soloists and ensembles at June In Buffalo, universities, colleges, and churches around the country. He has also had performances in Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, and Puerto Rico. His music has been featured at the festival “A Little Now Music” at Brevard College. Dr. McNair is currently U. C. Foundation Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Coordinator of Theory, and artistic director of the Contemporary Music Symposium at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
He has won affirmation from audiences and performers, and from critics in Fanfare magazine, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Buffalo News, the Chattanooga Free Press, and in the journals Worship and The Hymn. Organizations awarding him prizes and commissions include the American Composers Forum, Chattanooga Downtown Partnership, Chattanooga Clarinet Choir, Spivey Hall and the Athens YWCO, Allied Arts of Chattanooga, Chattanooga Symphony chamber players, Choral Arts of Chattanooga, and the Percussive Arts Society. McNair was twice chosen as composer-in-residence for the Viva Voce! Choral Camp, and was a participant in the Faith Partners residency program of the American Composers Forum. He has also served as resident composer for Ballet Tennessee, who commissioned, choreographed, and premiered five new works by him in their Millenium Nutcracker production.
McNair studied composition with Donald Erb, Sydney Hodkinson, and Scott R. Meister, at The Cleveland Institute of Music, Southern Methodist University, and Appalachian State University. He has participated in master-classes with internationally known composers including Jennifer Higdon, Nils Vigeland, Earle Brown, George Crumb, Richard Felciano, David Felder, Lukas Foss, Karel Husa, Philippe Manoury, and Bernard Rands.
Lewis Spratlan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2000, was born in 1940 in Miami, Florida. His music, often praised for its high dramatic impact and brilliant scoring, is performed regularly throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. A number of works have toured widely, as far afield as Russia and Armenia. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Massachusetts Artists Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, Tanglewood, and the MacDowell Colony. His opera Life is a Dream won a top prize in the Rockefeller Foundation-New England Conservatory Opera Competition and appeared on the New York City Opera’s “Showcasing American Opera” series in 2002; his Apollo and Daphne Variations won the New England Composers Orchestra Competition.
Among recent works are the one-act opera Earthrise, on a libretto by Constance Congdon, commissioned by San Francisco Opera; a piano quartet, Streaming, commissioned by the Ravinia Festival for its centennial celebration; Sojourner for ten players, commissioned for Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress; Zoom, for chamber orchestra, commissioned by the New York ensemble Sequitur; Wonderer, commissioned for the pianist Jonathan Biss by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust; Shadow, commissioned by the cellist Matt Haimovitz; and Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra, a consortium commission by thirty saxophonists across the country. He has recently completed a chamber opera based on the life and work of the architect Louis Kahn. A Summer’s Day, commissioned by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor, was premiered on May 22, 2009, at Jordan Hall in Boston.
Life is a Dream will receive its staged world premiere and four additional performances by the Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 2010.
His music is recorded on the Albany, Gasparo, Koch International Classical, Navona, Opus One, and Oxingale labels. Mr. Spratlan's latest recording, In Memoriam, for five vocal soloists, double chorus, and orchestra, and Streaming, for piano quartet, was released in May 2009 on the Navona label.
From 1970 until his retirement in 2006 he served on the music faculty of Amherst College, and has also taught and conducted at Penn State University, Tanglewood, and the Yale Summer School of Music. He lives with his wife Melinda in Amherst, Massachusetts.
For further information, see www.lewisspratlan.com.
Jay Vosk studied composition with a minor in saxophone at the Eastman School of Music and The University of Michigan. His teachers of composition include Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, Eugene Kurtz, Ross Lee Finney and Leslie Bassett. He studied saxophone with Larry Teal and William Osseck. He has written numerous orchestral, band, choral and chamber works including several works for or with the saxophone. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. As a saxophonist, Jay has performed with, among others, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, The Nova Saxophone Quartet and the Sonora Saxophone Quartet.
Vosk’s many honors include a Tucson-Pima Arts Council Fellowship, awards from the National Association of Teachers of Singing, a Meet the Composer Award, and an Arizona Composer Residency Award from the National Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Vosk has received commissions from, among others, organist Maryjim Thoene, Bassist Bertram Turetszky, the Arizona Repertory Singers and the Tucson Boy’s Chorus. His music has been recorded on the Crystal, AUR and Raven labels. Currently, Jay is working on a children’s opera entitled’ The King who Hated the Sky’ with librettist Boria Sax. He has taught a course in Jewish Music at the University of Arizona and is currently on the Music Faculty at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. Jay is also a top freelance woodwind performer and doubler in Arizona on the saxophone, clarinet and flute.
For further information, see www.jayvosk.com.
Bulletin Board
Mary Joy Patchett, a Masters student at the Eastman School of Music, will be performing Jon Aylward's "Duo for Soprano Saxophone and Violin" and Michael Keepe will be performing Drew Krause's "Ground Loop" for tenor saxophone and pre-recorded sound at the North American Saxophone Alliance's National Conference to be held at the University of Georgia, in March of 2010.
We would also like to welcome James Wiznerowicz of Virginia Commonwealth University to our composer roster. His "Brief Incomplete Thoughts" for alto saxophone, violin and cello, will be posted in our catalogue soon.