contact

Premiere: 2005-06 season by a consortium of nineteen saxophone/piano duos

Duration: 14’

Instrumentation: Alto saxophone, Piano

I find it mysterious that human beings continually seek new ways of connecting with each other that, paradoxically, have the collateral effect of distancing them in other ways. Etched stone tablets, books, letters, phones, faxes, e-mails, online chat rooms – even the printed music that makes tonight’s performance possible – all of these are means of disembodied communication. They allow for the possibility of reaching out across great distances, across national borders, even across time. What they supplant – or try to – is the actual magical, physical presence of another living being. So while they are bridges for discourse, they are also obstacles for physical interaction – they simultaneously, and profoundly, connect us to the world and distance us from it, in the sort of dynamic equilibrium that fuels so much human endeavor.

Contact is an exploration – in music – of this impulse to connect, and of the tensions and paradoxes inherent in our desire and efforts to make the world “smaller.” It is by turns lyrical and severe, gentle and brutal – in short, a microcosm of the various modes of our interactions with others. As a both physical (through live presence) and disembodied means of communication, Contact is ultimately a short reflection on one of the most fundamental aspects of being human.

A final, related, note: ours is a time in which recordings have come to vastly overshadow live performances as the primary means by which people experience music. The advantage of recordings is, of course, that anytime, anywhere, each of us has access to an astounding variety of music. For me, though, the drama of live performance, the excitement of watching virtuosos struggle with a demanding work, and the irreproducible sound of live instruments will always trump the convenience of recordings. Contact is an extraordinarily difficult work that requires performers of the highest technical and musical caliber – I invite you to truly relish the opportunity to see and hear it brought to life.

– James Matheson