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

-Sidera Saxophone Quartet, Auditorium Santa Chiara, Sansepolcro, Italy, July 20th 2022

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