Concerto for saxophone quartet and wind orchestra
Duration 21′
Fp: Saxophone Quartet Aava (Joonatan Rautiola, Samu Metsänen, Kalle Oittinen, Eero Saunamäki) & The Guards Band cond. Jószef Hárs, Oct 28 2020, Temppeliaukio Church Helsinki (FI)
Reviews
“Kujala is touchingly uninterested in conventional aesthetic genre thinking and cheerfully picks from the musical smorgasbord, but there’s never a need for a herring salad warning. On the contrary, Kujala is extremely careful about how he combines these fundamentally different ingredients. Latin rhythms and reminiscences from fusion jazz coexist constructively with more traditionally modernistic tendencies, within a whole that feels both dramatically and expressively exceptionally well-balanced.
The concise, 21-minute-long concerto is subtitled Transformations, and a continuous transformation of a relatively limited basic material is precisely what it’s all about. Additionally, Kujala has successfully mastered the combination of the soloist quartet with the orchestra. At times, the four saxophones perform in their own little bubble, and at other times, they engage in a fruitful interaction with the orchestra. Each soloist has been assigned their own appropriately challenging, tailor-made solo parts.” Mats Liljeroos / Hufvudstadsbladet