Thomas Simaku - Video Recording in Sweden

News | Posted on Tuesday 1 February 2022

Internationally renowned Swedish saxophonist Anders Paulsson has made a video recording in Sweden of Thomas Simaku’s Soliloquy VI for Soprano Saxophone.

Following the world premiere in Stockholm on 20 November 2021, Anders Paulsson has launched a video recording of Soliloquy VI as part of the Solitary Poems – an international project involving a numbers of composers from different countries who have written pieces for soprano saxophone during the lockdown.

Recorded in the ‘sacred’ place of Uppsala Cathedral and produced by Markus Heggestad, Soliloquy VI video was launched on 1 February 2022.

The superb performance by Anders Paulsson can be heard here.

As the title suggests, this piece is part of a cycle of works exploring the individual expression and virtuosity of a numbers of instruments, which Thomas Simaku has been engaged with for more than two decades now. Soliloquy I for Violin received its first performance at the 2000 ISCM – World Music Days in Luxembourg and was described as ‘a piece of unaccompanied violin writing which brings out the instrument’s genius for passionate expression’.

https://youtu.be/snVba1PySus

Seven works have so far been recorded, including Soliloquy V – Flauto Acerbo – commissioned by Chris Orton and the BBC Performing Arts Fund. It received a British Composer Award, and was described by the judging panel as a work, which ‘redefines the instrument in a visionary and entirely original way’; whereas Soliloquy VII for Clarinet was completed during the composer’s residency at the Dora Maar House in Provence, supported by the Brown Foundation in Houston, USA. Written for the soloist of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, Jérôme Comte, the piece was recorded in the Sir Jack Lyons concert hall of the University of York. ­

Professor Thomas Simaku is currently writing a piece for solo trumpet for Clément Saunier, commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain with the support of Diaphonique - Franco-British fund for classical contemporary music.