The Saxophone Orchestra

Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra

the siskiyou saxophone orchestra from spring 2011

The Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra (SSO) provides a collaborative learning environment for artists, students, faculty and staff at Southern Oregon University to create and perform music unique to the saxophone. Under the direction of Rhett Bender, Professor of Music at SOU, members of the SSO arrange, compose and commission music of all styles and musical periods. With saxophone voices from bass through sopranino, the SSO showcases styles from symphonic, opera, vaudeville, American big band, world-music, Celtic Reels and original pieces written for the SSO. In October 2007 the SSO traveled to China where they performed to mobs of enthusiastic music fans. As the guests of the Longkou Jingsheng Musical Instrument Co., the SSO performed at the China Music Trade Show in Shanghai and at the northern seaside resort city of Yantai. The SSO have performed live on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Greenshow, Britt Festival, Oregon Music Educators’ Conference and the KTVL-Medford Channel 10 Morning News. They were honored by being selected for a performance at the XVth World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand and last summer a consortium of the SSO opened for Branford Marsalis at the XVIth World Saxophone Congress in St. Andrews, Scotland. Go to saxophone.sou.edu for more information about saxophone activities at Southern Oregon University.

Listen to the SSO playing Elgar’s Nimrod

[audio:http://saxophone.swp.sou.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/16-Nimrod.mp3|titles=16-Nimrod]

Rhett Bender D.Mus.A., is a Professor of Music at Southern Oregon University. Additionally, he is the Region 1 Director of the Saxophone Alliance and has performed and at World Saxophone Congresses, presented master-classes throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, and performed and taught many times at the Sichuan Conservatory of Classical Music in Chengdu, China. He is one of the featured saxophonists on AUR’s landmark seven volume CD set, America’s Millennium Tribute to Adolphe Sax. Rhett Bender is a Selmer Artist Clinician.

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Listen to the SSO playing Saint Saens’s Bachannale from Samson and Delilah

Silver Strand Waltz

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