for alto saxophone and piano

Jeff Loeffert – alto saxophone
Caitlin Foster – piano

Program Note:

Swarm was composed for the 2012 Cortona Sessions for New Music in Cortona, Italy. In this piece, I explore various extended techniques for the saxophone including timbral trills, growling, flutter tongue, varying degrees of vibrato, and playing inside the piano. The sound world of this piece is frenetic, shifting, and turbulent and is inspired by the many times I accidentally disturbed a fire ant colony or wasp nest during my youth in southeast Louisiana.