Fukio Saxophone Quartet

When I was writing “Today I am red” for a saxophone quartet in Paris(2018), the Syrian civil war was at its height. In the newspaper I saw a photo of a father holding the body of his little daughter in his hands. For parents, the death of their child, whether from an illness or a gunshot, is unbearable. So I incorporated a child’s death song from the Burgenland folk songs into the piece.

“Today I am red, tomorrow I am dead, today my cheeks are red”. So the children sing the song without thinking about how cruel it is. To commemorate death, I use bird whistles in this piece. It’s a small way of consoling. The birds sing in the cemetery.

It’s great to hear the celebrated Fukio Saxophone Quartet perform this piece for the first time in Spain.