Ajax was written in the summer of 2009 as a work for saxophonist

Jonathan Hulting-Cohen. Driving pulsations, virtuosic displays, and clangorous volumes are all idiomatic to this concerto, making the analogy to one of the strongest of Greek heroes, Ajax, appropriate.

The music itself is a juxtaposition of several disparate displays of harmonic landscapes. As has become characteristic of my recent, Post-Minimalist tendencies, one section does not depend on any other section. Rather, one sphere of material attempts to stand successfully next to another sphere, creating an organic structure where no individual section makes a complete return, but rather, alludes to past ideas in favor of fresh stratification and development.

 

           

Premiere Performance Date: October 22nd, 2010,

      Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

  Midwest Composer’s Symposium