The Coral Sea

Score and soprano saxophone part

Forces or Category: Soprano saxophone & piano

for soprano saxophone and piano
The Coral Sea takes its title and structure from the prose poem of the same name that Patti Smith wrote as ...

The Coral Sea

Score and soprano saxophone part

Description

for soprano saxophone and piano
The Coral Sea takes its title and structure from the prose poem of the same name that Patti Smith wrote as a memorial to the great photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989. The piece's seventeen sections follow Patti Smith's division into a Prologue, for piano alone, Voyage, a series of contrasting episodes, and after a fierce climax, a final Litany which begins with a monody for unaccompanied saxophone.

Programme Notes:

The Coral Sea takes its title (and structure) from the prose poem of the same name that Patti Smith wrote as a memorial to the great photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989. (The Coral Sea is also the title of one of Mapplethorpe's most striking, and (for him) unusual photographs - of a battleship.) The piece's seventeen sections follow Patti Smith's division into a Prologue, for piano alone, Voyage, a series of contrasting episodes, and after a fierce climax, a final Litany which begins with a monody for unaccompanied saxophone.

The Coral Sea was commissioned by Group AG and was first performed by Martin Robertson and Antony Gray at Tate Britain on January 15th 1998.
Copyright Gabriel Jackson

The Coral Sea

Score and soprano saxophone part

Gabriel Jackson

Composer Information

Gabriel Jackson (b.1962)

One of Britain's foremost composers, after three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, Gabriel Jackson went on to study composition with Richard Blackford and John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. Particularly acclaimed for his choral works, his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of most of Britain's cathedral and collegiate choirs and he is a frequent collaborator with the leading professional groups of the world. From 2010-2013 he was Associate Composer to the BBC Singers. In 2014 his hour-long The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned for the 750th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford, was premiered in its chapel. May 2015 saw the premiere at the Latvian National Opera of Spring Rounds for soprano, choir and orchestra, commissioned by the Riga-based youth choir Kamer for their 25th anniversary. He was recently commissioned by The Marian Consort to write Stabat Mater to mark their 10th anniversary.

Gabriel Jackson's website