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For Saxophone Octet (with Optional Bass Saxophone)
Duration: 4'
In my first semester at the University of Illinois, I helped to found the reed quintet Paradiso. When preparing for our extremely classy first concert in December 2017, it seemed appropriate to have some sort of Christmas encore. However, as the reed quintet is a relatively new ensemble, there were simply none to be found. I decided to slap together an extremely classy Christmas medley (entitled A Reedtastic Christmas Medley) to suit the needs of a mildly entertaining and relatively brief encore.
My dear friend Anne Kunkle was the saxophonist in the premiere performance, and when she asked if I might be interested in arranging A Reedtastic Christmas Medley for the Khroma Quartet to perform as an encore at their Midwest program in December 2018, the answer of course was yes! Thus, A Saxtastic Christmas Medley was born.
Most recently, Pin-Hua Chen reached out to me to see if it might be possible to score the sax quartet version out for saxophone octet (with optional bass) to perform with the MIT Saxophone Ensemble in December 2019. Once more, the answer of course was yes, resulting in this even saxiertastic Christmas medley!