Baljinder Sekhon: Alchemy
Innova

Often it's the composer who receives the primary credit on a release, with the performer given secondary billing. Composer Baljinder Sekhon and saxophonist Doug O'Connor are credited equally on the cover of Alchemy, however, but maybe that's as it should be: given his involvement on all five of the works for saxophone presented, O'Connor is critical to the project; in fact, Alchemy is the product of a decade-long collaboration between the two. Adding to the album's appeal, the instrument appears within a number of different configurations, including an electronics-enhanced saxophone quartet, duo with piano, and as featured soloist with both orchestra and percussion ensemble. What binds the pieces together, naturally, are the composer's sensibility and the saxophonist's presence.

Sekhon's no greenhorn, by the way. His music has been heard in more than 500 concerts around the world, and thirteen commercial recordings of his work have been issued. Currently an Assistant Professor of Composition at Penn State University, he's an academic and percussionist as well as composer. Accomplished also, O'Connor's an Eastman School of Music graduate and has held teaching positions there and at the University of Wisconsin.

Originally scored for saxophone and prepared piano, Gradient 2.0+ appears here in an arrangement for saxophone and percussion, with O'Connor joined by the Eastman Percussion Ensemble. The animated rhythms and syncopated saxophone patterns driving the piece suggest affinities between Sekhon's writing and that of Michael Torke and Graham Fitkin, but the composer's focus here centres as much on timbre as rhythm and melody when percussion sonorities come from both a conventional mallet instrument and struck piece of paper. The form of Gradient 2.0+ isn't single-dimensional either, as shown by the emergence of a meditative section between the rapid propulsion of its beginning and ending.

Scored for twelve saxophones, Rendezvous sees O'Connor shifting to a guest director role and overseeing the playing of the Eastman Saxophone Project's players. For this composition, the musicians enter one at a time until they're voicing together, the shared material twelve pitches from which melodies and harmonies develop. A political idea is obviously implied in the way multiple voices come together in a shared space that's design to be flexible enough to accommodate difference. However, no awareness of the formal background to the piece is required to enjoy an elegant, thirteen-minute performance that explores the various ways a dozen saxophones can operate as separate entities and as an ensemble. Performed by Red Line Saxophone Quartet, Secret Corners is more modest in featuring four players only (O'Connor, on soprano), though Sekhon's electronics add an integral element to the piece. Live, the saxophonists are positioned around the audience to replicate a quadraphonic speaker set-up. For the recording, the surround-sound concept is simulated by a stereo mix, while the electronic treatment involves oscillator banks that either re-generate the saxophones' patterns or produce contrapuntal lines. As a result, the performance expands in its timbral dimension, with synth-like textures appearing softly alongside the murmurings of the horns. The most memorable moment, however, arrives towards the end when a lyrical lament is movingly expressed by O'Connor.

In Sekhon's three-part Sonata of Puzzles, O'Connor (on alto) and pianist Jeremy Vigil explore musically the structural properties of different game types. Consistent with its “Never-Ending Jigsaw” title, the instruments' parts are designed to come together like pieces, with hocketing, pitch, and rhythm deployed to translate the specific puzzle concept into musical form (the “never-ending” aspect derives from the fact that the end re-connects to the beginning, the result a piece that could in theory play forever in an eternal loop). Whereas “Dead-End Labyrinth” parts company from the opening in its woozy, drifting feel and dreamy, drowsy character, “Crossword on Fire” lives up to its billing in powering the music with a frenetic pulse and intricate interlacing between the players.

Performed by O'Connor and the University of South Florida Symphony Orchestra, The Offering closes the album with three movements—the first two featuring alto and the third soprano—that present a travelogue dealing with identity, transformation, and celebration. In essence a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, The Offering conforms to a fast-slow-fast structure, advancing as it does from the dramatic “Abandon Yourself” to “Turn to Ash,” whose “crumbling,” lethargic quality is achieved by using extended techniques to alter the orchestra's timbres, and the finale “Acquire Majesty,” which ends the work on an uplifting, triumphant note.

February 2022