“While much music of great quality has been written for saxophone quartet, often that music can be quite challenging for young musicians,” said\u00a0Estes<\/a>, a Ole Miss<\/strong> professor of music who teaches saxophone and woodwinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Estes and his\u00a0quartet of music professors<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 including Jeff Heisler<\/strong>, of Oakland University<\/strong>; Ian Jeffress<\/strong>, from Western Carolina University<\/strong>; and Matthew Younglove<\/strong>, of Tennessee Tech University<\/strong> \u2013 decided to take their passion for saxophone and chamber music and make it more available and playable for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The mission of the Assembly Quartet is centered around access and education of music for saxophonists,” Heisler said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And with this mission, the\u00a0Pedagogy Project<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Pedagogy Project is designed to better serve developing and emerging saxophone quartets at the pre-college and early college level,” Estes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quartet released the initial album of this endeavor, “The Pedagogy Project, Volume 1: Some Assembly Required” (Mark Custom Records<\/strong>), earlier this year. Thanks to the\u00a0Mississippi Arts Commission<\/a>\u00a0grant, the group can commission new music for its sophomore album and collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Composers Amber Ferenz, Russell Holland<\/strong>, and John Vela<\/strong> are charged with creating the new material. This will be Ferenz’s first contribution for saxophone quartet, while Vela will compose a mariachi work and Holland will feature a concert march.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Commissioning new music to fill a void in the repertoire is paramount to this project,” Estes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quartet plans to perform\u00a0the new music in concerts, generate reference recordings and publish both the recorded and printed music with Mark Records<\/strong> and Just A Theory Press<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group has shared the initial music from the project with teachers and students in Oxford<\/strong>, as well as San Antonio, Texas<\/strong>; Knoxville, Tennessee<\/strong>; Grand Rapids, Michigan<\/strong>; Fairfax, Virginia<\/strong>; and Lake Charles<\/strong>, Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The response to this project by students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive throughout the nation, and it is our hope that this music will find its way on prescribed music lists for state solo and ensemble festivals.” Estes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Marisa C. Atkinson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ole Miss professor and Assembly Quartet receive funding to make saxophone repertoire more accessible A new Mississippi Arts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":151304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17687],"tags":[5436,32457,10971,32463,32462,27504,32451,32459,32461,5907,32464,32456,32460,27505,7303,5,2662,32452,4,32455,32458,18970,32454,792,3596,32453],"class_list":["post-151302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-of-mississippi","tag-adam-estes","tag-amber-ferenz","tag-assembly-quartet","tag-fairfax","tag-grand-rapids","tag-ian-jeffress","tag-jeff-heisler","tag-john-vela","tag-just-a-theory-press","tag-knoxville","tag-lake-charles","tag-mark-custom-records","tag-mark-records","tag-matthew-younglove","tag-michigan","tag-mississippi","tag-mississippi-arts-commission","tag-oakland-university","tag-oxford","tag-pedagogy-project","tag-russell-holland","tag-san-antonio","tag-tennessee-tech-university","tag-texas","tag-virginia","tag-western-carolina-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Assembly-Quartet-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1971&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151305,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151302\/revisions\/151305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\")
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