Ryo Noda Les Yeux Clos Noda Gusnar Tudor Van Zoelen - Dux1730 - Contemporary - by Dux

The album Les yeux clos by Japanese composer and saxophonist Ryo Noda presents a new version of several compositions performed by four outstanding musicians and saxophone masters. One of the pieces, Secret Garden II for four saxophones from 2018, is the world phonographic premiere. Ryo Noda (b. 1948) is an extremely interesting personality of Japanese music. He combines avant-garde approach to composing with interest in Baroque and Classical music of Western Europe and inclination to improvisation. In his works, he expresses himself in a subtle and intimate atmosphere, exploring the sound spectrum of the instrument and the secrets of advanced performance technique. The artist changes the means of expression, building a mood of concentration and tranquillity, as in the three minimalist compositions from the Zen cycle, then again weaving melodic threads reminiscent of the atmosphere of distant corners of space and time, motifs resembling sounds of the klezmer clarinet in the piece Dance, Dance, Dance for alto saxophone and in the composition The war and even of the duduk in the melancholic piece The dream. The composer is accompanied by three outstanding performers: Pawel Gusnar (b. 1976), Polish saxophonist, soloist and chamber musician, Gordan Tudor (b. 1982), an outstanding Croatian saxophonist, multiple prizewinner of international instrumental competitions, composer and teacher, and Andreas van Zoelen, a saxophonist from the Netherlands, an excellent performer, composer, cooperating with, among others, Arvo Pärt and Fazil Say.