TSC SaxOpen Strasbourg

Our new ensemble "The Tenor Saxophone Collective" had their debut outing a featured event at SaxOpen Festival on Sunday 12th July.

Consisting of twelve established tenor saxophonists from accross the world the ensemble presented 8 world premieres music written especially for this excting event!

Music by Christoph Enzel, Jenni Watson, Peter Leung, Andy Scott, Matt London and Matt Styles.

The TSi was delighted to include two new works in this programme from celebrated british composers Simon Holt and Colin Riley!

With our mission statement to champion original music for tenor saxophone the inclusion of these two composers is a real triumph for the instrument adding important new works to the repertoire.

 

Discover more about this exciting project through the following pages:
 
The TSC members in alphabetical order are:

Andy Scott [UK]
Arno Bornkamp [Netherlands]
Christoph Enzel [Germany]
Erik-Jan de With [Netherlands]
Erin Royer [Australia]
Gillian Blair [UK]
Henrique Portovedo [Portugal]
Jenni Watson [UK]
Matt London [UK]
Nathan Henshaw [Australia]
Niels Bijl [Netherlands]
Peter Leung [Australia]

Simon Holt

Shortly after graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music, Simon Holt was firmly established on the new music circuit with a series of commissions and fruitful collaborations with the London Sinfonietta and the Nash Ensemble. Influenced by Messiaen, Xenakis and Feldman as well as visual artists such as Goya, Giacometti and Brancusi, his music is complex, dramatic and often enigmatic. The intricate internal structures of his works are concealed by a seemingly impulsive nature. During the 1980s he worked primarily in complex soundworlds, while since the 1990s the dense textures have often been offset by Feldmanesque moments of calm, that Holt refers to as ‘still centres’.

Holt was Composer in Association at the BBC National Orchestra of Wales 2008 - 2014 and during that time wrote a number of successful orchestral works including St Vitus in the Kettle, Centauromachy, The Yellow Wallpaper and Morpheus Wakes.

He is Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music. His music is published exclusively by Chester Music Limited.

"His mastery of tone-colour and instrumental resource is clearly relished by all the performers." - Gramophone

Simon Holt | Chester Music

Colin Riley

Colin Riley's work draws on elements of improvisation, new technologies, song-writing and large-scale classical form. His work is impossible to categorize, embodying a genuine integration of stylistic approaches. As an established, but ever-questioning figure within the contemporary music scene over the last 20 years he has cut an independent path through many layers of trends and styles. His music is played by a wide range of performers and ensembles and he also regularly creates work for his own two groups, the Homemade Orchestra and MooV, where he is composer and performer/director. His work embraces the tension of complex and simple approaches, as well as those between the avant-garde and popular music. He is also a committed advocate of the emerging and up and coming in the new music scene. As well as being Senior Lecturer at Brunel University London, Colin has been a mentor for the Making Music’s Adopt A Composer Scheme for the last eight years, director of the network for creative musicians, Music Orbit, and co-Artistic Director of the iF Festival.

"Colin Riley has for some years been a composer who seems to be able to create moments of magic." -Classical Music Magazine

www.colinriley.co.uk