Work
Meditations Upon Nasreddin Hoca
for any Bb saxophone and piano
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About
This work was purpose-written upon request from one of the schools I work in, as a companion piece for my solo work Hazine (Treasure). The musical material here needed to be in a similar vein: that is, using exotic modality in a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean style, which in this case alternates with a more jazz-fusion-based, contemporary sound.
The title originates from a tale by the great storyteller Nasreddin Hoca, called ‘Hide and Seek’. The protagonist says at the end “If you do not look in your own heart first, then you will not find wisdom”. My work consists of 5 short, intuitively-composed ‘meditations’, linked together by either solo saxophone cadenza-like passages, or pianistic interludes.
To reflect a little upon the purpose of this work’s composition, the last of said meditations is actually ‘old wine in new bottles’, so to speak: it revamps and then develops, in a written-out improvisation, a melody and accompaniment I composed when in my final year of high school, seeing as I was writing this for an advanced student in their own final year of high school.
– Yvette Audain
Contents note
A one-movement work for tenor or soprano saxophone and piano. 5 short, intuitively-composed ‘meditations’, linked together by either solo saxophone cadenza-like passages, or pianistic interludes.
Performance history
29 Sep 2010: Performed by Erinc Yikar (tenor saxophone) and Edward Liu (piano) at St Peter's College, in Epsom, Auckland
06 Mar 2011: Performed by Yvette Audain (soprano saxophone) and Hong Yul Yang (piano) as part of Yvette Audain's 2011 Auckland Fringe concert, 'Grooves Unspoken', at St Luke's Church, Remuera, in Auckland
Performed by Yvette Audain (soprano saxophone) and Hong Yul Yang (piano).