To Quasar

This work has two titles in order to consider it from multiple perspectives. The first, Outer Planes for Saxophone Quartet, reflects the composer’s concerns with music and form; the second, Predator Drone MQ-1, with those regarding modern politics and his overall rejection of current ideologies. The second title was meant not to be programmatic, but rather to illuminate the intentions of our current political structures. The appropriate notes are as follows.

Outer Planes for Saxophone Quartet

A work which is meant to be a musical example of the intangible and esoteric nature of nonmaterial ideas. Although metaphysics can be considered spatially infinite, this musical model is composed of features and locations of a finite scope. These features and locations are then split into a collection of further sub-planes that represent a particular facet, or theme, related to that plane.

Predator Drone MQ-1

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Airforce, and General Atomics in the early 1990s. Equipped with Hellfire missiles, the Predator Drone has been used to kill people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.

Despite claims from the administration that drone strikes have killed very few civilians, multiple independent reports (including the Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institutions and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) have proven that in fact 98% of drone strike casualties are civilians. That is 50 for every one “suspected terrorist.”

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Premiere

• November 16, 2013, Quasar Saxophone Quartet with Dissonant Disco, Western Front, Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada)