Second Flight (2017)

Joan Tower's Second Flight, for solo alto saxophone, is her sequel to the highly acclaimed Wings, originally for clarinet, and later transcribed for saxophone.

The World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund, an organization founded by Ken Radnofsky twenty-five years ago, organized the co-commission of Second Flight by fifty saxophonists. Their premieres took place around the world beginning September 30, 2018.

Composer note
I followed some of the imagery of flying from Wings — my clarinet solo from 1981 — in Second Flight (which also includes a snippet of music from that earlier work).

To me, the saxophone matches the power of the clarinet in its ability to do so many different things — its slow-to-fast speeds, soft-to-loud dynamics, short-to-long notes, and huge register — which gives it a great musical expressive flexibility.

This all inspired me — again — to think of something powerful that flies high and wide above a large landscape.

— Joan Tower