Canadian, Brooklyn-based tenor sax player and composer Quinsin Nachoff’s Patterns from Nature converges music, film, and physics. This ambitious project was developed collaboratively with Canadian physicist Stephen Morris (Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto) and filmmakers, Dutch Tina de Groot and Udo Prinsen, Canadian Lee Hutzulak, and American Gita Blak. This project was inspired by Morris’ research into emergent patterns, the four movements—Branches, Flow, Cracks, and Ripples—and took shape in parallel across music and film, not to illustrate scientific ideas, but to build an original artistic multimedia structure in which sound, image, and concept carry equal weight.
Morris’ work provided the conceptual grounding for the four-movement, closely intricate, chamber-orchestral Patterns from Nature, offering raw structures that shaped how both the music and the visuals could evolve. This work was premiered in October 2023. Patterns from Nature begins with «Branches», which interprets the growth patterns of trees, with pianist Matt Mitchell as the main soloist. The following «Flow» uses the wide-ranging percussionist Satoshi Takeishi’sunconventional set-up with the textural range of the Molinari String Quartet to capture snapshots of the complexity of fluid flow. «Cracks» suggests a layered conversation between the ensemble and the improvised parts of bassist Carlo De Rosa and clarinetist François Houle, creating a series of bifurcating possibilities. The last movement, «Ripples», develops a tense dialogue between Nachoff’s sax and trombonist Ryan Keberle, mimicking the icicles from which the inspiration derives. The second work, the three-movement concerto «Winding Tessellations», features Nachoff as the main soloist, exploring the interplay of structured composition, playful, thematic improvisation, and dynamic, carefully nuanced orchestration. This work was premiered in June 2017.
The two compositions are performed by a 17-member ensemble conducted by JC Sanford and were recorded at Oktaven Audio in New York in October 2023. These dramatic compositions highlight Nachoff’s rich, cerebral, and complex musical aesthetics, echoing influences and compositional architectures from contemporary composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Iannis Xenakis and György Ligeti as much improvisation strategies from innovative jazz composers such as Gil Evans, Duke Ellington, Kenny Wheeler, Wayne Shorter, and Henry Threadgill, as well as Nachoff’s own improvisation strategies, allowing space for individual voices within the carefully built forms.
Eyal Hareuveni
Quinsin Nachoff (tenor saxophone), JC Sanford (conductor), Roberta Michel (flute, piccolo, alto flute, bass flute), François Houle (clarinet), Sara Schoenbeck (bassoon), Tony Kadleck (trumpet), John Clark (french horn), Ryan Keberle (trombone), Aaron Edgcomb (percussion), Gene Hardy (musical saw), Matt Mitchell (piano), Carlo De Rosa (bass), Satoshi Takeishi (percussion), Molinari String Quartet (Quatuor Molinari): Olga Ranzenhofer (violin), Antoine Bareil (violin), Frédéric Lambert (viola), Pierre-Alain Bouvrette (cello)
