Sanjo Fantasyfor solo saxophone (11:00)
Written for and premiered by Zachary Costello Sanjo is a highly virtuosic and expressive genre of Korean traditional solo instrumental music that explores and elaborates on various themes that are passed down through an oral tradition from teacher to student. Each section of a sanjo progresses through increasingly faster rhythmic cycles creating a feeling of natural accelerando that is intensified via metric modulations. This work explores four rhythm cycles that are typically found in sanjo. |
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The first movement, “Song without words” is a meditation on jinyangjo, a slow rhythm cycle organized around four cycles of 6 beats. The second movement, “Shattered Melody” is a “duet for one” based on jungmori, an andante-like 12 beat cycle. The title is a play on words - the rough translation of sanjo being “scattered melodies.” The third movement, “Broken Teeth & Whirlwind Rag” uses jajinmori and hwimori, two very fast rhythmic cycles that dance back and forth between a duple and triple feeling. The title “Broken Teeth” is borrowed from an adoptee memoir in which the author laments over her inability to communicate in Korean. The tripping, stumbling feel of this movement is meant to mirror the frustrating experience of trying to communicate in a language that you cannot speak despite being of that culture.
This work was commissioned by Zachary Costello, a fellow Korean American adoptee interested in Korean traditional music. I was very inspired to write a piece that reflected our startlingly similar identities and journeys as adoptee musicians exploring our birth culture through language and music. Rather than attempting to write a true sanjo, I instead wanted to infuse this work with the duality of a Korean adoptee’s fractured identity, blending both Korean and American musical elements in strange and imperfect ways. This piece juxtaposes the language of one musical culture against another, much like the awkward and humorous ways in which adoptees often navigate living in two worlds and cultures.
This work was commissioned by Zachary Costello, a fellow Korean American adoptee interested in Korean traditional music. I was very inspired to write a piece that reflected our startlingly similar identities and journeys as adoptee musicians exploring our birth culture through language and music. Rather than attempting to write a true sanjo, I instead wanted to infuse this work with the duality of a Korean adoptee’s fractured identity, blending both Korean and American musical elements in strange and imperfect ways. This piece juxtaposes the language of one musical culture against another, much like the awkward and humorous ways in which adoptees often navigate living in two worlds and cultures.
