December 2023: the latest release by the Delta Saxophone Quartet – Late Music – contains cut-down versions of my Arabic lute transcription, Damascene Redux, alongside pieces by composers associated with Late Music York as well as music by Joe Duddell, Steve Martland, Hayley Jenkins and others.
The digital release of the album includes an EP on which an extended version of Damascene Redux can be heard (the versions on the physical CD are blink-and-a-miss length and function as connective tissue between other pieces).
It was way back in 2014 that the Deltas premiered this piece which is actually a reworking of an earlier brass quartet, Damascene Portrait, so it is very gratifying to hear them revisit it almost a decade later. They have been busy with the piece, performing it in workshops with school children and students up and down the UK. Damascene Redux was always conceived as being open to improvisatory exploration so I am delighted it is being used as a vehicle for music education.
