PROJECT ENCORE, featuring today’s most celebrated classical saxophonist Timothy McAllister and acclaimed pianist Liz Ames, was born from the idea that recital curation often relies too much on tradition and time-honored chestnuts while ignoring fresh, innovative and diverse voices. Alongside the duo’s conscious efforts to weave a wide array of influences into their playing, from modernism to minimalism or popular idioms including latin, jazz, funk, and musical theater, they believe it is increasingly crucial to foster partnerships with living composers representing a broad spectrum of styles and backgrounds. The result of their efforts includes these virtuosic showpieces and vignettes which they hope will find a home as true ‘encores’ following larger compositions, dazzling concert openers, or, simply, the perfect introductions to these composers themselves as a means to round out any recital programming.

From mechanical stutterings framing arguably the most famous pop sax solo in history to a crooning theater ballad; from elegiac music inspired by pandemic lockdowns to jubilant outbursts of renewal and hope, PROJECT ENCORE, VOLUME 1, is a channel-surfing mosaic of modern composition at its finest. McAllister notes, “there is a mission and a level of musical activism behind this album, and nothing can speak to the state and richness of concert music today like the saxophone.”

The collected works on this first volume, and the Ann Arbor-based duo’s third album since 2020, features the music of Nina Shekhar, Jennifer Jolley, Andre Myers, Zoe Cutler, Griffin Candey, Matthew Evan Taylor, Karalyn Schubring, Marianne Ploger, Chad “Sir Wick” Hughes, Jim Territo, Armando Bayolo, Corey Dundee, Andrés Eloy Rodriguez, and Gonzalo Garrido-Lecca.

PROJECT ENCORE, featuring today’s most celebrated classical saxophonist Timothy McAllister and acclaimed pianist Liz Ames, was born from the idea that recital curation often relies too much on tradition and time-honored chestnuts while ignoring fresh, innovative and diverse voices. Alongside the duo’s conscious efforts to weave a wide array of influences into their playing, from modernism to minimalism or popular idioms including latin, jazz, funk, and musical theater, they believe it is increasingly crucial to foster partnerships with living composers representing a broad spectrum of styles and backgrounds. The result of their efforts includes these virtuosic showpieces and vignettes which they hope will find a home as true ‘encores’ following larger compositions, dazzling concert openers, or, simply, the perfect introductions to these composers themselves as a means to round out any recital programming.

From mechanical stutterings framing arguably the most famous pop sax solo in history to a crooning theater ballad; from elegiac music inspired by pandemic lockdowns to jubilant outbursts of renewal and hope, PROJECT ENCORE, VOLUME 1, is a channel-surfing mosaic of modern composition at its finest. McAllister notes, “there is a mission and a level of musical activism behind this album, and nothing can speak to the state and richness of concert music today like the saxophone.”

The collected works on this first volume, and the Ann Arbor-based duo’s third album since 2020, features the music of Nina Shekhar, Jennifer Jolley, Andre Myers, Zoe Cutler, Griffin Candey, Matthew Evan Taylor, Karalyn Schubring, Marianne Ploger, Chad “Sir Wick” Hughes, Jim Territo, Armando Bayolo, Corey Dundee, Andrés Eloy Rodriguez, and Gonzalo Garrido-Lecca.

PROJECT ENCORE, featuring today’s most celebrated classical saxophonist Timothy McAllister and acclaimed pianist Liz Ames, was born from the idea that recital curation often relies too much on tradition and time-honored chestnuts while ignoring fresh, innovative and diverse voices. Alongside the duo’s conscious efforts to weave a wide array of influences into their playing, from modernism to minimalism or popular idioms including latin, jazz, funk, and musical theater, they believe it is increasingly crucial to foster partnerships with living composers representing a broad spectrum of styles and backgrounds. The result of their efforts includes these virtuosic showpieces and vignettes which they hope will find a home as true ‘encores’ following larger compositions, dazzling concert openers, or, simply, the perfect introductions to these composers themselves as a means to round out any recital programming.

From mechanical stutterings framing arguably the most famous pop sax solo in history to a crooning theater ballad; from elegiac music inspired by pandemic lockdowns to jubilant outbursts of renewal and hope, PROJECT ENCORE, VOLUME 1, is a channel-surfing mosaic of modern composition at its finest. McAllister notes, “there is a mission and a level of musical activism behind this album, and nothing can speak to the state and richness of concert music today like the saxophone.”

The collected works on this first volume, and the Ann Arbor-based duo’s third album since 2020, features the music of Nina Shekhar, Jennifer Jolley, Andre Myers, Zoe Cutler, Griffin Candey, Matthew Evan Taylor, Karalyn Schubring, Marianne Ploger, Chad “Sir Wick” Hughes, Jim Territo, Armando Bayolo, Corey Dundee, Andrés Eloy Rodriguez, and Gonzalo Garrido-Lecca.