Instrumentation: Tenor Saxophone & Piano

Downloadable sample pages found at the link here.

This work was written in 1996 while studying at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. It was composed for my friend and fellow student, Jade Grice and premiered that year by the Wind Ensemble, with Jade as soloist and myself conducting. I deliberately composed a work that contained all the elements of a traditional concerto (albeit in one movement), but enormously compressed. I composed a number of other works in this style at this time - notably, my Four Movements for Saxophone Quartet. Jade was, understandably, disappointed I had written him such a short concerto, and over the following two years I used this work as source material for the major work of my student years, Still Time, for Tenor Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra. This Concerto no. 1 was placed as final movement of that work (titled Concerto no. 2).

In 2026, thirty years after the work was written I decided to revisit and revise this concerto for my friend and colleague, Thomas McKay. Thomas had performed the piano reduction of my Still Time whilst he was a student in 2013 and I had revised the work for him at that time (especially the cadenzas). I have made this 2026 revision using some of the work done in that 2013 revision to shape the rewritten cadenza to this concerto, as well as to help make the accompaniment into something more striking.