Illusory Dreams is a collection of six solo and electroacoustic works for saxophone written for Jack Thorpe. This collection of works was commissioned in 2022 with funding from the Theodore Presser Foundation and includes pieces by Anthony R. Green, Jung Hyun Lee, LJ White, Danial Derakhshan, Adeliia Faizullina, and Brittany J. Green. These works explore various themes of introspection and human connection by experimenting with new sound worlds, silence, and the use of the saxophone as a solitary voice. These six works will be recorded and released as Thorpe’s debut album in the fall of 2023. 

Following these new saxophone works will be a set of original music by a group of musicians from Urbana-Champaign. The music of Saori Kataoka (trumpet), Emma Taylor (bass), Jeremiah St. John (trombone), and Max Osawa (drum set) is an amalgamation of their eclectic backgrounds as performers of jazz and classical music as well as avant-garde free improvisation.

Artist Bio

Saxophonist Jack Thorpe is a native of Atlanta, GA and is an active soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and educator. As the alto player in the Versa Quartet, Thorpe won first place in the 2020 North American Saxophone Alliance’s Quartet Competition. In 2017, he co-founded the Snow Pond Saxophone Quartet, a chamber ensemble formed to represent the Frederick L. Hemke Saxophone Institute at the Snow Pond Center for the Arts to international audiences.

In March of 2022, he was named the winner of the University of Illinois's Presser Graduate Award with which he has commissioned six composers who belong to traditionally under-represented communities in classical music to write solo and electroacoustic works for saxophone. Thorpe holds a DMA in saxophone performance and literature from the University of Illinois, an MM in saxophone performance from Stephen F. Austin State University, and a BM in saxophone performance from Georgia State University.

$10 - Tickets Available at the Door