Instrumentation: saxophone quartet

Duration: 10 minutes

Year composed: 2014

Mandatory piece for the final of SaxOpen Saxophone Quartet Competition, Strasbourg, France, July 7th 2015

First performance: Amit Dubester, Leo Stern, Clio Theodoridis, Alexandre Galvane, Musica festival, Strasbourg, France, September 20th 2015

Other performances: Gusto saxophone quartet, 15th Thailand International Composition Festival, Bangkok, Thailand, August 9th 2019

Gusto saxophone quartet, 2019 Asia Saxophone Congress, Shanghai, China, September 17th 2019

Marie Kikuchi, Kana Ohno, Naoko Tsukada, Yuuri Yamaguchi, Nonaka Music house, Tokyo, Japan, December 2nd 2019

Distinction: Composition Competition for Saxophone Quartet organized by the Festival Musica, the Conservatoire de Strasbourg and SaxOpen, first prize, 2015

Program note: Instants éphémères is an introspection of the saxophoneʼs production of sound. The sequence of notes constructed around the name Sarah (Eb-A-D-A-B) issues progressively from blowing into the instrument, like the wind whispering far away sounds.

The structure of the piece is entirely based on the Lucas sequence, named for a nineteenth century French mathematician. This sequence, just like the Fibonacci sequence, is closely tied to the golden ratio φ (phi). From a simple breath, the sound texture progressively becomes more opulent until the climax, where it then starts to crumble little by little, returning to the initial breath, like a calm after an extremely violent storm.

Score: https://www.babelscores.com/catalogs/instrumental/chamber-group/4726-instants-ephemeres