Hello All,

I have posted a video from my performance at the Mozartiana Festival in Gdansk, Poland on August 20, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3kHy754gy0

As many of you may recall, our program, called ‘Saxy Mozart’ (not my idea, mind you…) was my collaboration with Polish pianist Stanislaw Dejas, whom I met while giving a masterclass/performance at the Baku Music Academy in Azerbaijan (amazing how these connections occur, isn’t it).

I have posted what was my favorite part of the performance, and also for me (and others, I’m told) the most sublime…and considering all of the variables involved during this specific piece, I’m absolutely delighted how it turned out.

This is a jazzed-up version of the second movement of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto, which we are doing on tenor sax and piano. Now, if any of you remember, I was on a grand tirade inspired by the situation of not being able to bring my tenor sax with me–Continental Airlines had informed me that my case was too big (it’s really not…but I was traveling with other instruments, as well) and that I could either pay a few hundred dollars extra to check it as additional baggage (and get it crushed, more than likely) or buy a ticket for it–neither was acceptable…

So…the nice people at the Mozartiana Festival found me a tenor to use that belonged to a local musician. Now, this tenor just so happened to be a 1939 Selmer Balanced Action, one of the more sought-after vintage instruments. Now, this horn had a great sound, but the intonation and key placement was something that I had to get used to…quickly…I rather struggled with it for a couple of days; the horn was also not in a great state of repair, and I was honestly concerned about the performance.

Now, unlike the Tajik videos I recently posted, the fog you see is not a dry ice machine, but actually fog…our performance started after 9PM, outside, right near the Baltic Sea…and it was cold…real cold…and raining…the playing conditions were difficult under normal circumstances, but having to battle an unknown instrument while (according to some) degrading Mozart by ‘jazzing him up’ in-front of a very knowledgeable European festival crowd on top of all of this made for an, oh, ‘energized’ performance to say the least…and this movement was the first piece of the concert that I played on tenor…the horn was cold, needless to say.

Well, the spirit of that vintage horn was smiling and in my corner that day. I was actually wondering if anything would come out of it at all, but sound did emerge, and we were in-sync. I can still feel the energy of that horn…noble, powerful…

Enjoy!
Demetrius

Womens Work Presents First Concert of 2011 Series, March 10 at
Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan

Women’s Work will present the first concert of its 2011 series, featuring multi-instrumentalist
Demetrius Spaneas and special guests Alexandra Honigsberg and Elzbieta Polak on violins, on Thursday, March 10 – 8 PM in the Renee Weiler
Concert Hall at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, Manhattan (between Seventh
Avenue South and Bedford St.). The 2011 series, hosted by Beth Anderson, with works chosen
by the presenting performers, will explore recent solo instrumental, vocal and organ music by
prominent contemporary and historic women composers from the Americas and Europe.

In the March 10 program, clarinetist, saxophonist and recording artist Demetrius Spaneas and
special guest artists will perform Carol Alban’s Elegy for clarinet, Beth Anderson’s Comment
for clarinet and Toledo Swale for soprano sax and 2 violins, Denise Broadhurst’s Equinox for
clarinet, Alexandra Gardner’s Two Breathing Songs for clarinet, Lynn Job’s Archangelo Red
for clarinet, Jill Miller-Thorn’s Lament for clarinet, Molly Thompson’s Magnolias and Speed
for tenor sax, Joan Tower’s Wings for tenor sax and Judith Lang Zaimont’s Astral for clarinet.
Several of the composers will speak before the performances of their works.

Admission to the March 10 concert is $15 general, $10 for students and seniors, with tickets
available at the door starting at 7:30 PM. For more information, contact Women’s Work at 516-
586-3433 or visit their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/womenswork. Programs are
subject to change.

Women’s Work brings recognition to the achievements of women composers and performers of
all periods and nationalities by producing concerts of women’s music and by teaching the public
about their accomplishments. Many of the composers presented speak at the concerts. Join their
Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Womens-Work/135440309855293

Soloist/composer/conductor/recording artist Demetrius Spaneas leads a varied international
career. He has commissioned, recorded and premiered works by many major composers,
including John Cage, John Harbison, Donald Martino, Bernard Rands, Gunther Schuller and
Joan Tower. He currently has two solo recordings on Capstone Records, When Wind Comes
to Sparse Bamboo (2003) and From a Far-off World (2006). In 2010 he released Sfumato, a
collection of improvisations with vocalist Galina Parfenova under his own label, DSM. Visit him
at http://www.dspaneas.com/.

Series host Beth Anderson’s music has been described as having “a refreshing simplicity without
naiveté” and as –“deeply felt, direct, and yes, beautiful” and “charming and deeply felt to the
point of romanticism.” Her latest CDs are new recordings by Nancy Boston of September Swale
as part of American Women: Modern Voices in Piano Music and Aleksandra Maslovaric’s
recordings of Belgian Tango and Tales #1 & #3 for violin and piano on Feminae in Musica. For
more information about Ms. Anderson, including a bio, videos, list of works, discography and
much more, please visit http://www.beand.com.

The March 24 concert will also be given at Weiler Hall of GHMS, this time by soprano Eileen

Strempel, with pianist Gilya Hodos. Titled Love, Lust and Longing in Poetry and Song, it
will include songs from Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Lori Laitman, Elisenda Fábregas, Libby Larsen,
Judith Cloud and Amanda Harberg, Christine Donkin, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Jocelyn Hagen
and Lita Greir.

The March 30 concert will be presented at St. John’s Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The
performer will be internationally renowned organist and composer Barbara Harbach, who
will perform several of her original works and arrangements, along with music by Fanny
Mendelssohn, Hilary Tann, Sharon J. Willis, Elizabeth R. Austin, Sarah Meneely-Kyder and
Elizabeth Stirling.

Funding for Women’s Work 2011 comes through the generosity of many individual supporters.

Press inquiries and requests for photos or interviews should be directed to Jeffrey James Arts
Consulting at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net.

Greetings,

It is with great pleasure that I announce that my chamber orchestra work, please…tell her, has been chosen as one of the featured pieces for Orchestra 60X60, a production of Vox Novus.

The project will contain 60 works, each 60 seconds in length, presented continuously in an hour-long orchestra performance synchronized with an analog clock. The 60×60 mission is to present an audible slice of what is happening in the contemporary music scene by representing 60 works that are diverse in aesthetic and style.

My chamber orchestra work, please…tell her, is programmatic. I had a vision of a man–a soldier, perhaps–at the end of his life; his final thoughts, his final wish, to have the woman he left know with his dying breath that he truly loves her.

I have included an mp3 file of a MIDI realization of the piece:

please…tell her

In other news, I will be promoting my upcoming Womens Work 2011 concert, as well as posting new performance videos, over the next few days.

Thank you for your continued support!

Demetrius

Hello All,

I have to apologize for the time that I have been taking between posts; also, most of my posts as of late have been little more than concert or video announcements. My schedule, combined with many a-looming deadline, has taken its toll on my time for writing or updating. Actually, the only reason that I have time to write now is that I decided not to go to a friend’s concert that I was planning on attending–I have to catch-up on everything (including this posting); I hope I’m forgiven…

Also, the insanity of these times pretty much also defines the fact that only two of my woodwind arsenal will probably see the light of day in the next 6 weeks: my Bb clarinet and my tenor sax. This is mostly due to the Women’s Work Concert that I’m preparing for in March, but there are also plenty of other reasons, like playing along with my jazz band students at the college to teach them stylistic improvisation. More on the tenor later…

I have a number of issues that I do want to blog about, including a series that I want to title ‘Jazz: a four-letter word’ which has to do with the state and perception of jazz in the both the artistic and market worlds. Maybe soon…

That being said, I do want to say that I have been uploading videos via youtube, including posting a another Tajik-Jazz collaboration from my time in Tajikistan at the Dushanbe International Jazz Festival. This tune had the ‘working title’ of Joyful Spirit or Joyous Spirit; in my posting, I decided to add ‘Oh’ to this to make it Oh, Joyful Spirit because I think it has more panache.  You can see the new video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ALoikYmYQ

Now, that being said, I am planing on adding a video page here on my website; this way, I can post my videos and the ones of me (the good ones, anyways)  that others have taken so that they are all on one page and in one place. I hope to do this by next weekend.

Speaking of equipment, the ongoing saga on finding the perfect (for me, anyways) tenor set-up continues. I don’t really get it; I have basically played the exact same equipment (or new versions there of) on all of my horns from Eb clarinet down to baritone sax for like 25 years, all EXCEPT on tenor. Maybe this has to do with the face that I care more about the sound on it because I consider the tenor to be *my* voice. I try things, they work OK for a while, I try other things. Maybe I’m looking for pure, unfettered expression–Hell, I know I am…

So, I went into Rayburn Music when I visited Boston a few weeks back and decided to try some horns–a couple of Mark VIs, a Conn (for fun; would never buy one–I am a Selmer guy), and some new Selmer Reference 36s. There was this one amazing Mark VI, really wonderful–I just didn’t want to pay what they (the people who put it on consignment, not Rayburn; the on-going joke is that only doctors and lawyers, not musicians, can actually afford them). If I sold my Selmer tenor AND baritone, I’d still be shelling-out a couple grand for this horn–it’s ridiculous the inflated price of these horns…so that wasn’t going to happen…

So, then I started experimenting: “alrighty, what can I do to give my Super Action 80II tenor some more resonance?”

I found a Mark VII neck lurking in the store. My original tenor neck was damaged a number of years ago, and even though it was fixed, it was never ‘right’…so I tried other necks, including a solid silver one, but in the end, I wasn’t happy. But this Mark VII neck…now, granted, those of you who are saxophonists are saying “Mark VII? Why?”; I know, but hear me out. The Mark VII wasn’t a horrible horn, just different than a Mark VI. The neck made a huge difference in the body of sound in my horn–made it bigger, deeper. I like it…

To this odd neck change came something more radical: I bought a new mouthpiece…made of WOOD!

Yes, wood. Again, those of you who are saxophonists, and especially those of you who know me and my work on the R&B side of things are probably picking your jaws up from off the ground. I swore for years that metal was the only way to go for a mouthpiece on tenor, but I tried this: a Theo Wanne Gaia 8

The sound was big, real big, and DARK and rich. I didn’t like it at first, and even after I bought it I keep thinking that I’ll hate it, but I like it more and more. For my style of music now, it may be the right color for my voice. And it plays soooo easily…

It’s funny, I went to the store to actually have a ‘lighter’ setup (the Mark VI is an extremely light horn) and ended up with something robust and darker, and heavier. And let’s be honest, I have a funny looking tenor. My horn was overhauled by the great Emilio Lyons, who, when I told him to surprise me as to the color of the pads I wanted, made them electric blue with kelly green build-ups for the keys and black trim. Add to this the fact that the Mark VII neck is a completely different brass mix (and color) than my S-80II tenor body (orange as opposed to pale yellow) and the brown wooden mouthpiece with gold trim and ligature, and you’ve got a Frankenstien kinda horn. All I wanted was something simple and it got more complex…of course, maybe this is the real simple solution…we’ll see…

…but for now, I like it…

Finally, I did manage to finish the new piece for the wonderful German pianist Susanne Kessel. The work, for pianist and singing bowl (one player) now has the title of jalewa, which refers to a Nepalese river bird. I’m very happy with the piece; I feel as if I was channeling both Morton Feldman and Oliver Messiaen. I think that watching the performance of the piece will be as wonderful as listening to it–I make Susanne hold the singing bowl the entire time with her left hand while she strikes it and plays piano with the right hand.  I can’t wait!

So, there it is–my life update for you all, with a little equipment geeking-out. I hope you enjoyed it.

Until soon,

Demetrius