The Winds of Paradise

"The Winds of Paradise" is a deeply personal work written during a time of great stress. It expresses a pure and raw longing for the sea, lacking many of the colors of harmony I was experimenting with at the time. The piece serves as an homage to Takatsugu Muramatsu's "Far away", a similarly simple ballad that became our saxophone ensembles founding piece, being performed at multiple district meetings and arts festivals in and out of campus. The point of The Winds of Paradise was to be simple, raw, and minimalistic–– an art that might be lost on me now.

Two versions of this piece exist: the original (and more challenging version) in A major and a warmer, more approachable version in F major named the "Hodges Edition" after Lake Hodges, a hiking spot that I would frequent back home.