Avalanche is a 10 minute work for saxophone quartet and pre-recorded electronics.

The piece has been recorded by Laefer Quartet (London) and Ensemble Saxologie (Montreal).

Here is the score:

Please just write to me at benolivermusic [at] gmail [dot] com if you’d like the parts and/or electronics and I’ll send them all. All I’ll ask is that play the piece you let me know and invite me to come along!!

You can hear Laefer play the piece live here:

And listen to Ensemble Saxologie here:

Programme note

Avalanche (2022) is scored for saxophone quartet and tape. The recorded electronics were created using layered outputs of a bespoke wavetable synth – PICO – designed and built by Blake Troise (aka PROTODOME). The synths provide a mechanised funk soundworld for the quartet to inhabit. The piece is intentionally unrelenting; lots of energy, many many notes. I hope people might feel like bobbing their heads in places; dancing is fine too.

Originally titled ‘Avalanche of Shit’,the work is, in part, an ode to Liz Truss. It was begun just a few days before she came to power and completed just after her 49 inspirational days in office.

Kate Molleson said nice things about it on BBC Radio 3:
A strong casing of plastic here, an overload of E numbers, but somewhere in the mix are a bunch of terrific, living, breathing saxophonists having a whole lot of fun.