Instrumentation: soprano saxophone

Duration: 8 minutes

Year composed: 2020

First performance:  Geoffrey Deibel, Cortona New Music Sessions, online, August 19th 2020

Other performances:  Geoffrey Deibel, 2021 NASA Region 6 Virtual Conference, online, April 9th 2021

-Geoffrey Deibel, 2021 NASA Region 6 Virtual Conference, online, April 10th 2021

-Serafima Verkholat, reMusik festival, St. Petersburg, Russia, June 1st 2021

-Pisol Manatchinapisi, Spectrum, New York, NY, USA, November 18th 2022

-Riccardo Cavaliere, Resilience Festival, Foggia, Italy, December 30th 2023

Program note: The title image of floating grass cut from its roots ripens through the saxophone’s dichotomic gestures, vacillating between raw violence and contemplative long tones. This articulation of polar notes is a metaphor for the grass shorn from its root, left to float. The entire piece is an expression of the moment in which it was written. As a foreigner quarantined in a different country with no way back to my home country, I felt that my « root » was cut. While this situation was temporary, I experienced feelings of anger and distress, but also the comfort of realizing that I was lucky to be healthy.

Score: https://www.babelscores.com/catalogs/instrumental/8402-une-herbe-flottante-a-la-racine-coupee8402