REVIEW: Gorgeous Tyshawn Sorey and Thomas Adès concerto double-bill at Lucerne Festival”
“…Sorey’s writing for the solo sax establishes whole another brand of virtuosity, one wrought of long lines, where each note is given its singular identity; a procedure akin to the playing of the concerto’s dedicatee as well as the tintinnabulations of...

Jari Kallio AIM-Adventures in Music (August 2022)

“REVIEW: Stephen Mulligan returns to the ASO for a saxophone-driven program”
“The evening’s linchpin was its second piece, “Adagio (For Wanda Lee Smith)”…Timothy McAllister was comfortable standing with one foot in each of the normally disparate worlds of classical refinement and hard bop intimacy. “Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)” flat out works thanks to a consistently...

Jordan Owen ArtsATL (March 2023)

“The world premiere ‘Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)’ by the artiste etoile Tyshawn Sorey brings a meditative contrast. Together with the saxophonist Timothy McAllister, the musicians paint broad lines, delving into the mysteries of sound. The plucking strings are falling drops of water that always sound different. The mixture of bass clarinet, trombones, and string basses - a hum that resonates inside us.”

Roman Kuhne Luzerner Zeitung (August 2022)

Tyshawn Sorey

Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) for alto saxophone and orchestra (2022) (available C.F. Peters)
WINNER, 2024 PULITZER PRIZE IN MUSIC

Newark-born multi-instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. The Wall Street Journal notes Sorey is, “a composer of radical and seemingly boundless ideas.” The New Yorker recently noted that he is “among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone…An extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape.” Sorey has received support from The Jerome Foundation, The Shifting Foundation, Van Lier Fellowship, and was named a 2017 MacArthur fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow. He received a B.Music in Jazz Studies and Performance from William Paterson University, an M.A. in Music Composition from Wesleyan University, and a D.M.A. in Music Composition from Columbia University. He is currently Presidential Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania.

Booking Information

Martha Woods
President
Jonathan Wentworth Associates Ltd.
6118 40th Avenue
Hyattsville, Maryland 20782-3012

Video Highlights

The Critics Speak

“REVIEW: Stephen Mulligan returns to the ASO for a saxophone-driven program”
“The evening’s linchpin was its second piece, “Adagio (For Wanda Lee Smith)”…Timothy McAllister was comfortable standing with one foot in each of the normally disparate worlds of classical refinement and hard bop intimacy. “Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)” flat out works thanks to a consistently...

Jordan Owen ArtsATL (March 2023)

REVIEW: Gorgeous Tyshawn Sorey and Thomas Adès concerto double-bill at Lucerne Festival”
“…Sorey’s writing for the solo sax establishes whole another brand of virtuosity, one wrought of long lines, where each note is given its singular identity; a procedure akin to the playing of the concerto’s dedicatee as well as the tintinnabulations of...

Jari Kallio AIM-Adventures in Music (August 2022)

“The world premiere ‘Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith)’ by the artiste etoile Tyshawn Sorey brings a meditative contrast. Together with the saxophonist Timothy McAllister, the musicians paint broad lines, delving into the mysteries of sound. The plucking strings are falling drops of water that always sound different. The mixture of bass clarinet, trombones, and string basses - a hum that resonates inside us.”

Roman Kuhne Luzerner Zeitung (August 2022)