“To predict the future of a curve is to carry out a certain operation on its past.”
– Norbert Wiener
This provocative statement by cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener encouraged me to investigate the concept of a “curve” and led me to the consideration of an entire world of curvatures, each one exhibiting distinctive characteristics and alluring possibilities for shaping sound and time. As with most of my creative work in sound, words and concepts initiate an investigation of possibilities for sonic design, generation and development. Presented with this rich world of shape and energy that is the “curve,” I chose several selections from the innumerable types of curves that have been defined over time, choices which lend themselves to vivid sonic imagery and musical concepts applicable to the solo and ensemble saxophone writing of the piece, the melodic trajectories, the spatial movement of sound across the sections of the ensemble, and to a metaphoric exploration of shape in time. The solo saxophone is featured in _the future of a curve III_ as soloist and instigator in a pursuit of meaningful expression that tends toward the ascendant, with the saxophone ensemble serving as both support and foil. the future of a curve III_ was commissioned and premiered by soloist Chinley Hinacay and the University of Calgary Saxophone Ensemble under the direction of Jeremy Brown.
