My orchard is short of a peach is written for 10 saxophones and tape. The piece was commissioned by Nordic Saxophone Collective who will premiere it in Aalborg on 22 September.
James Black writes in the programme note:
"My orchard is short of a peach aims to be a sonic exploration of loss and grief. When we think of loss and grief the main emotion we culturally assume to encounter is sadness, melancholy,or heartache. Although these emotions make up part of the grief experience, I have recently been more obsessed with the madness of grief (particularly in the case of sudden loss) – how it upends your entire world view and forces you to confront and reevaluate everything in the blink of an eye. This piece is an attempt to explore this madness – combining noise music, vaudeville, big band harmonies, high modernism, text, and choreography in an attempt to bottle the insanity that you go through after your world is turned upside down, and the strange, peculiar clarity that accompanies this experience."
Find more information about the concert here.