Paul Wehage

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Paul Wehage (born April 2, 1963 in Grand Forks , North Dakota ) is an American saxophonist and composer.

Live and act

As a child, Wehage played in a school band and had saxophone lessons with Ruben Haugen , a student of Marcel Mule . In San Antonio he continued his education with John L. Buccanan and Harvey Pittel and made his debut with the San Antonio Symphony at the age of seventeen .

He won several music competitions and studied saxophone at the University of Texas at Austin with Pittel, music theory and harmony with Jeffrey Stolet , music history with Elliott Antokoletz and orchestration with Donald Grantham . Under the direction of Dan Welcher and Thomas Lee , he played works by young composers such as Peter Terry , Jeffrey Stolet and Edmond J. Campion .

In 1985 Wehage came to the Conservatoire de Paris , where he continued his saxophone training with Daniel Deffayet and studied solfège with Thérèse Brënet and music analysis with Alain Margoni . He also took private lessons from Renata Mazella , who introduced him to the leading French composers of the 20th century. In 1990 Yehudi Menuhin selected him for his Live Music Now program and enabled him to make his first record. The album contained 24 Morceaux de Genre , including pieces by Rudy Wiedoeft .

In 1991 he met Jean Françaix , who invited him to play his piece L'Horloge de Flore at the concert on his 80th birthday and subsequently adapted several of his compositions for him. For a trip to Japan with the baritone Philippe de Gaetz and the pianist Moyuru Maeda , Françaix composed the song cycle Huit Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux for baritone, tenor saxophone and piano, which was premiered in Paris in 1996 in the presence of the composer.

In 1989, Wehage joined the American Music Ensemble of Voice , which has works by Scott Joplin , Charles Ives , Rudy Weideoft, George Gershwin , Cole Porter , Aaron Copland , Leonard Bernstein , but also younger composers such as Gloria Coates , Kate Waring , Libby Larsen and Peter Terry has performed and given concerts in the Baltic States, Azerbaijan, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

Since 1991 Wehage has worked with the cello octet Tempo Di Cello , with which he a. a. Alexandre Rudajev's Variations et Thème , Gian-Paolo Chitis Concertino for Tenor Saxophone and Cello Octet and Joelle Wallach's Sweet Briar Elégies premiered and recorded. In 1992 he met Antoine Tisné , with whom he collaborated on the recording of his Ombres de Feu , De La Nuit à L'Aurore and Monodie II pour Un Espace Sacrée (1994) - each arranged for saxophone.

In 1996 he realized Tisnè and the organist Françoise Lévechin-Gangloff in Erfurt Music for Sacred Spaces , a series of three times three concerts, which was followed by a pilgrimage of the composer and the musicians to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Tisnè also composed Labyrintus Sonorus and the Offertorium pour Chartres for saxophone and string quartet, which Wehage premiered in 1998 shortly before the composer's death.

In addition, Wehage has worked with Jeffrey Stolet in the field of electroacoustic music since the early 1990s . He organized a performance of parts from his To Eat the Last Messiah in Paris and got him the commission to compose the opera Frankenstein , which premiered in 1999.

Thanks to his former teacher Thérèse Brênet, Wehage became acquainted with the composer Patricia Adkins-Chiti and subsequently added compositions by Libby Larsen , Joelle Wallach , Tina Davidson and Gloria Coates to his repertoire.

In 1996 he was the first guest at the Donne In Musica festival in Fiuggi, where he premiered compositions by Sally Reid , Kate Warings and Linda Worsley . At the second festival in 1998 he played and conducted world premieres of compositions by Lejla Agollis , Elizabeth Austins , Beverly Grigsbys , Pascale Jakubowskis , Jane O'Learys , Ivana Loudovas , Indra Rïses , Doris Magaly Ruiz Lastress and Iris Szeghys in three days .

In 2001, Wehage realized the multimedia project Podium Piece - American Tryptich with Jean-Paul Matifat . In collaboration with Claire Deluca and Sophie Lahayville , the production Nevers was created in 2005 based on the script by Marguerite Duras for Hiroshima Mon Amour . In 2002 the American Carson Cooman composed a number of works for him.

In addition to his own compositions, Wehage wrote numerous saxophone adaptations of works by Johann Sebastian Bach , Charles Gounod , Georg Friedrich Handel , Scott Joplin , Joseph-François Kremers , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Jacques Offenbach , Robert Schumann , David W. Solomons , Jan Pieterszoon Sweelincks and others.

Works

  • A Whitman Sonata for Trumpet and Piano
  • American Songs (based on poems by Elizabeth Kirschner ) for soprano, alto saxophone and piano
  • L'Arbre de Vie , sextet for oboe, alto saxophone, trumpet guitar, cello and double bass
  • Arktos for solo oboe
  • Artemis for piccolo solo
  • Carillon , prelude for piano
  • Choral pour la Sainte Cécile (based on texts by Antoine Delatour-Abourdain ) for wind and string orchestra and four-part choir
  • Complainte Bucolique for English horn and piano
  • Concert Fantasy on "Jingle Bells"
  • Concerto pour Saxophone Alto et Orchester
  • Cypher , Variations for Chamber Orchestra
  • Distant stanzas for string quartet
  • Dog Music for alto saxophone and piano
  • Four sketches for trumpet and euphonium
  • Hommage à Duras for saxophone solo
  • Idyll for trumpet, string quartet and organ
  • In Time's Continuum (based on poems by Elizabeth Kirschner) for mixed choir and string quartet
  • Lucy's Song (based on texts by Charles Dickens ) for solo soprano, mixed choir and organ
  • Maïa for flute and harp
  • Marche Burlesque for sub-double bass saxophone
  • Stabat Mater for five alto saxophones or five clarinets or wind quintet or string quintet
  • Nara for trumpet and organ
  • Night Incantation for piccolo solo
  • Nocturne for harp
  • Les Palissades Mytérieuses , theme and seven variations for alto saxophone and piano
  • Prelude, Toccata et Fugue for alto saxophone, clarinet or English horn and organ
  • Questions Personnelles , song cycle based on texts by Jean-Thierry Boisseau for medium voice and piano
  • Responsio Six suites for saxophone solo
  • Romance for bass clarinet and piano
  • Ryoanji for double bassoon or double bass saxophone and piano
  • Savage Thoughts for tenor saxophone and harp
  • Scènes de Ballet , six pieces for brass band or piano,
  • Six essays for saxophone
  • Sky Vision for trumpet solo
  • Sonata da Chiesa for organ
  • Sonata Eroica for trombone and piano
  • Sonata for alto saxophone, bassoon or clarinet and piano
  • Sonate en Forme de Trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon
  • Sonatina for two saxophones
  • Song for Norbert for trumpet and piano
  • Stabat Mater for five-part mixed or female choir
  • Suite Latignacienne for organ
  • Suite en quatre mouvements for harp
  • Symphony no. 1 “Dreamscapes” for large orchestra
  • Ten Dickinson Songs for High Voice and Piano
  • This Burning Sun of Grief and Memory for saxophone trio
  • Three Canonic Inventions for alto and tenor saxophone
  • Ti-bo Rag for saxophone and piano
  • Vacation Snapshots for Trumpet and Piano
  • Valse Sophie for alto saxophone and piano
  • Valse Sophie for saxophone and piano
  • Vie Nomade for cello solo
  • What the Wind Remembers for tenor saxophone and harp
  • Zephyr for flute solo

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