Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 113, Amazing New Student Performances

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we are excited to feature three amazing new student performances of David's music: Give Us This Day, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble, and The Seeker.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 32, Julian Velasco’s Interview of David – Part 2

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 2 of Julian Velasco's interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 31, Julian Velasco’s Interview of David – Part 1

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 1 of Julian Velasco's interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 107, Electrifying Saxophone Performances

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three electrifying new performances of works for saxophone: Recitation Book, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble and Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 26, Joseph Lulloff Performs Saxophone Concerto in Lucerne

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature a classic performance of the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble with Gregg Hanson leading Joseph Lulloff, Alto Saxophone and the University of Arizona Wind Ensemble from the 2001 World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) Conference.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 96, Beautiful Solo Saxophone Performances

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three beautiful new solo performances of works for alto saxophone: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble - Movements I and III, and Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano - Movement I.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 68, More New Performances of Saxophone Music

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three new performances of some of David’s best saxophone music: Songs for the Coming DayConcerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble, and David's transcription of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations for Saxophone Quartet.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 54, Walking

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week we feature three of David’s works that reference his practice of walking: Song: "Fire in the Earth" from Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble, "Solvitur Ambulando" from Song Book for Flute and Wind Ensemble, and Rollo Takes a Walk.

Music in Life

Remarks given on 18 April 2002 at Indiana University School of Music before a performance of the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble. Other works on the concert included Montana Music: Chorale Variations and Tears.

I want to give a few thoughts about how music acts in our lives. Music making is in the balance point between the conscious and unconscious minds. By way of brief illustration, the conscious part is the part we consider to be ourselves – the ego, the thinking part, the active does, the part that wakes up in the morning, and lives by the clock, and lives in a particular place, the part that has a name, and a personality, and a job.

By contrast, the unconscious part of ourselves, the part where dreams come from, does not live in time. That is, time means nothing to it. It lives in the whole universe but in no particular place. It has no personality but is life force itself. It does not have a name or a job identity, but comes forward to us as mythic forms and dreams.

Each of us has this mythic, timeless part. In mythology we are princes, kings, queens, warriors, wise men, and wise women. In a fundamental way these mythic identifications are who we really are. This part of ourselves is what allows us to identify so strongly with mythic characters, and why […]

Interview with Russell Peterson

Russell Peterson, professor of saxophone at Lawrence University in Appleton WI, interviewed David Maslanka on 30 November 1998 after premieres of Mountain Roads for saxophone quartet, commissioned and performed by the Transcontinental Saxophone Quartet and Song Book for alto saxophone and marimba, commissioned and performed by Steve Jordheim and Dane Richeson there. This interview touches a wide range of topics, including the composition process, David’s saxophone music, especially the Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, the relationship between the composer and the audience, working with consortia, recordings vs. live music, David’s pastel drawings, Sea Dreams, UFO Dreams, the Mass and much more. This interview was originally published in the Fall 1999 Saxophone Symposium

Russell Peterson: Today is an exciting day for saxophonists, two new pieces for saxophone by David Maslanka being premiered! How do you feel about having two new works that you’ve written come into being?

David Maslanka: It’s a lot all at once! And the bringing into place of any one thing – and both of these (Song Book and Mountain Roads) are sizable pieces, I hadn’t realized how large they were. It’s a lot of emotional work to put all of that into place. You guys do the technical end of it and prepare to your best musical ability, and of course […]