![\"amy-dickson-dusk\"](\"https:\/\/soundslikesydney.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/amy-dickson-dusk-218x240.jpg\")
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Dusk & Dawn<\/em><\/p>\n Amy Dickson,\u00a0 Sony Classics 88725479572<\/p>\n Sydney born saxophonist Amy Dickson’s\u00a0latest\u00a0CD release Dusk & Dawn\u00a0<\/em>won for her the title of Breakthrough Artist of the Year at\u00a0the 2013 Classical Brit Awards. This was the first Classical Brit\u00a0Award\u00a0for an Australian as well for the saxophone.<\/p>\n Dusk & Dawn\u00a0<\/em>contains\u00a012 familiar tracks arranged for saxophone and orchestra. The unifying theme is mood rather than style or genre, because on it you’ll hear\u00a0music from opera, film, jazz and the ‘classics’, written by\u00a0Bellini (Casta Diva<\/em> from Norma<\/em>)\u00a0and Tom Waits (In The Neighbourhood<\/em>),\u00a0Nino Rota and Debussy (Dr Gradus ad Parnassum<\/em> from The Childrens’ Corner Suite<\/em>), Hoagy Carmichael and Chopin.\u00a0None of them were originally written for the saxophone. The album topped the UK Classical chart earlier this year.<\/p>\n Amy Dickson’s playing\u00a0is impressive.\u00a0\u00a0She distils the\u00a0saxophone’s beauty of sound and\u00a0its\u00a0versatility of tone,\u00a0from the plaintive La Strada<\/em> by Rota, to the warmth that oozes out in Jerome Kern’s Smoke Gets\u00a0In Your Eyes<\/em>.\u00a0Her\u00a0masterful circular breathing\u00a0unwinds the smoothest of phrasing; her\u00a0improvisations\u00a0skip up and down the registers, and\u00a0her technique\u00a0makes a romp of Dr Gradus ad Parnassum, <\/em>written by Debussy as a satire within his Children’s Corner Suite<\/em> for young musicians who had an aversion to practising scales. You get the idea.<\/p>\n That said, there are several other interesting aspects of this anthology. Firstly, repertoire. The saxophone was invented in 1840. It doesn’t feature in any of the great classical music that was composed before this date. Yet there is music that is\u00a0eminently suited to its style and sound, and\u00a0Dusk & Dawn<\/em>\u00a0reaches back in time to transcribe\u00a0for the saxophone, music that\u00a0is older than the instrument itself.<\/p>\n Secondly, the instrument that was invented by Adolphe Sax\u00a0in 1840 was a work in progress. The saxophone was protected by patent for another 26 years before other\u00a0instrument makers\u00a0could improve on and refine the mechanism. Instruments can take\u00a0many years to evolve into something workable and reliable. Even then it is an ongoing process. The instrument played today has more than 300 parts. Whilst the\u00a0arrangements that emphasised the slow and the sultry worked well, those that required a sense of lightness\u00a0 – Dr Gradus ad Parnassum,<\/em> the cadenzas and\u00a0ornaments\u00a0in Cast Diva – <\/em>sounded on the heavy side.<\/p>\n Lastly, the programming.\u00a0 Beginning with Faure,\u00a0moving through the eclectic selection and\u00a0closing with Chopin, it is refreshing that the sequencing wasn’t restricted by the\u00a0custom of\u00a0chronological order.\u00a0However, there is potential for a sense of restlessness with the mixing of vastly different styles in quick succession – for example, Casta Diva<\/em> is followed by Smoke Gets In Your Eyes; I Only Have Eyes For You <\/em>by Chopin’s\u00a0 Nocturne No 2 in E flat;<\/em> Piazzolla is followed by Debussy then Hoagy Carmichael. Perhaps in the interests of allowing a mood to build,\u00a0 the tracks could have been grouped in brackets according to style.<\/p>\n Shamistha de Soysa for SoundsLikeSydney\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dusk & Dawn Amy Dickson,\u00a0 Sony Classics 88725479572 Sydney born saxophonist Amy Dickson’s\u00a0latest\u00a0CD release Dusk & Dawn\u00a0won for her the title…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"sls_format":[],"class_list":["post-14470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"acf":{"deck":"","is_featured":false,"media_type":"standard","audio_embed":"","video_url":""},"yoast_head":"\n