Firing Squad (score/parts) - REED5

Firing Squad
for reed quintet: oboe, clarinet, alto saxophone, bass clarinet & bassoon
by Niloufar Nourbakhsh - American composer

From the Akropolis Quintet Collection

from the composer:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." The compelling opening of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterpiece, constructs an intense moment of reflection on the past by digging into a childhood memory while facing a firing squad: his first encounter with ice. The technique of constructing such an intense moment that is reflecting on the past was uniquely inspiring to me. Firing Squad is structurally inspired by this sentence, exploring the intense moment of confronting death and expanding the moment into all possible feelings and memories one might go through before saying farewell to life.
- Niloufar Nourbakhsh

A maverick of new wind music, Akropolis is committed to showcasing the vast possibilities of the reed quintet through our adventurous repertoire spanning over 400 years of musical history. Having premiered over 50 works for the unique combination of oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet, and bassoon, Akropolis is devoted to expanding the existing reed quintet repertoire with imaginative arrangements and the continued development of new works by emerging and established composers.

From the dozens of professional reed quintets actively performing around the world, to the hundreds of student ensembles forming at universities around the United States alone, we hope this collection of our ever-growing repertoire continues to help inspire reed quintet growth around the globe. In the collection below, you’ll find works Akropolis has commissioned and arranged, plus works commissioned or arranged by other artists from around the world we consider important contributions to the standard repertoire of the reed quintet.