Music by Daniel Dorff

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The Seven Chakras for Tenor Saxophone and Piano (c.19 minutes)

In 2002, I had the lucky opportunity to become owner of Tritone Press & Tenuto Publications which has some nice treasures for saxophone, including some of the first pieces for tenor or bari to enter the repertoire. I started to think more and more about classical saxophone playing again, having started musical life as a saxophonist before putting more time into composing and bass clarinet. In fact, I started composing in high school only to create saxophone repertoire to play myself, and then got sidetracked.

I kept missing saxophone more and more through 2002 and 2003 and thought about tenor saxophone as being my "real voice" even though I'd always been an alto player. In July 2003 I went to the World Saxophone Congress in Minneapolis -- the first time in 25 years that I’d immersed myself back into the saxophone world; I couldn’t believe how tremendously the standards have changed since the 1970s! I got impulsive and bought a Tenor there and started to practice every day, just like in college, and I knew it was time to start writing for saxophone again, now to start building the tenor repertoire. What an amazing instrument without enough literature!

At the time I was learning about the body’s energy nodes called chakras, which are 7 locations in the body serving as primary junctions in our nervous system. In many holistic disciplines like yoga and reiki, each chakra is believed to regulate different aspects of our spiritual and psychological energy, and this inspired me to write a suite about chakras, with each chakra's "personality" suggesting the mood and flow of the seven continuous and connected movements. 

Being a metaphysical set of interpretations, characterizing the seven chakras is very subjective, and there is some disagreement between cultures as to how to best explain and define them. For some interesting reading, I'd encourage those who are curious to look online and in bookstores, and to look at multiple sources to see what remains constant and what varies from writer to writer.

last updated 10/10/07