“World-renowned saxophonist Timothy McAllister’s brilliant, crowd-pleasing performance was equal parts rock-star swagger and supremely polished musicianship”
“…the playing by the LSO is first-rate in the three concertos, their experience of Fuchs’s style from four previous albums (recorded between 2004 and 2014; this newcomer was set down in August 2017) showing. The concertos are all very different in format…Rush is a rather Bernsteinian diptych for alto saxophone with a punchy, roof-raising final passacaglia…soloists are exemplary. Naxos’s sound is terrific.”
“Timothy McAllister delivers unusually pure and sweet tone in the cadenzas of Rush, the alto saxophone concerto. Faletta shows a clear affinity throughout for Fuchs’s warm, spacious, neo-Romantic idiom, and the LSO responds with lush yet pristine playing.”
“Fuchs’s concerto, Rush, allows for some of the more rhapsodic style for the beautiful beginning movement which also sets up the primary material for the work. With excellent virtuosic writing, Fuchs shifts between jazz and classical worlds. Blues injections connect to the former while a later passacaglia blends the two worlds. McAllister is matched well for this work and makes it really shine from its gorgeous lyricism to its more exciting technical requirements.”
Kenneth Fuchs (b.1956) is a Grammy Award-winning American composer. He currently serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He is the first living American composer recorded by the Sinfonia of London and its conductor, John Wilson. Fuchs recorded for Naxos five albums with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta, the last of which won the 2018 Grammy Award in the category Best Classical Compendium.
Rush: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Band or Orchestra (2012/2017) (pub. Edward B. Marks Music Company) was commissioned by Ryan Janus, then principal saxophonist of the United States Air Force Academy Band), and a consortium of 37 saxophonists, including Timothy McAllister, and ensemble conductors throughout the United States. The work, composed in versions for both orchestra and band, is composed in two movements, each about seven minutes in duration, connected by an extended cadenza for the saxophone soloist. Duration: 16 minutes.
Eventide: Concerto for alto saxophone, harp, percussion, and string orchestra (2023)(pub. Edward B. Marks Music Company) inspired by spirituals though not quoted directly. Described as “alluringly sensuous,” critic Victor Carr Jr wrote “the work is reminiscent of the pastoral mood-music of Vaughan Williams.” Originally conceived as an english horn concerto, this new version was recorded by Timothy McAllister and the Sinfonia of London, John Wilson, conductor for a June 2024 CHANDOS Records release. Duration: 20 minutes.
WINNER OF THE 2019 GRAMMY AWARD for BEST CLASSICAL COMPENDIUM
Celebrating Kenneth Fuchs’s fifteen-year musical collaboration with JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra! Our fifth Naxos recording, featuring four star soloists, was released on 10 August 2018. Order today: https://naxos.lnk.to/spiritualist
| Release date | August 10th, 2018 |
|---|---|
| Producer | NAXOS |
| Catalog Number | 8.559824 |
“World-renowned saxophonist Timothy McAllister’s brilliant, crowd-pleasing performance was equal parts rock-star swagger and supremely polished musicianship”
“Timothy McAllister delivers unusually pure and sweet tone in the cadenzas of Rush, the alto saxophone concerto. Faletta shows a clear affinity throughout for Fuchs’s warm, spacious, neo-Romantic idiom, and the LSO responds with lush yet pristine playing.”
“Fuchs’s concerto, Rush, allows for some of the more rhapsodic style for the beautiful beginning movement which also sets up the primary material for the work. With excellent virtuosic writing, Fuchs shifts between jazz and classical worlds. Blues injections connect to the former while a later passacaglia blends the two worlds. McAllister is matched well for this work and makes it really shine from its gorgeous lyricism to its more exciting technical requirements.”
“…the playing by the LSO is first-rate in the three concertos, their experience of Fuchs’s style from four previous albums (recorded between 2004 and 2014; this newcomer was set down in August 2017) showing. The concertos are all very different in format…Rush is a rather Bernsteinian diptych for alto saxophone with a punchy, roof-raising final passacaglia…soloists are exemplary. Naxos’s sound is terrific.”