In Search of... The Wild Saxamuhphones

5-movement suite.

One of a composer’s most difficult tasks is to write for an instrument that carries as much connotation as the saxophone. The mere mention of its name makes clichés almost unavoidable. To that end, writing for the saxophone can be full of frustration. After wrestling with clichés for far too long, I eventually began to embrace them. My search for what to do with four saxophones became a series of short sketch-like movements that employed the use of common saxophone connotative qualities. However, during the writing process, I began to feel that I was taming each cliché to the point of caricature. Each movement of In Search of … The Wild Saxamuhphones is an outgrowth of my own impressions of the saxophone both as a musical instrument and as a quasi-pop icon. (Matthew Schoendorff)