An award-winning blend of saxophone sounds—smooth, sure and resonant—will fill Rock Hall’s Mainstay when the Project Fusion quartet performs at 3:00 on the afternoon of Sunday, March 5.
Project Fusion’s musicians, all graduates of the Eastman School of Music, play completely from memory, to the delight of audiences and competition judges. They captured the Gold Medal at the 40th Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, won the 2015 Astral Artist National Auditions, took First Prize at the Music Teachers National Association Chamber Music competition, and won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Choice Award at the 6th Plowman International Chamber Music Competition.
In addition to concerts, the quartet’s musicians teach masterclasses at colleges and universities and workshops at K-12 schools. Project Fusion members are Dannel Espinoza, soprano saxophone; Matt Amedio, alto; NMF Personnel Director and former apprentice Michael Sawzin, tenor; and Matthew Evans, baritone.
Why name the group “Project Fusion?” Sawzin and his fellow musicians say it’s because “music is an infinite, ongoing projectguided by a sense of adventure and creativity.” The “fusion of ideas,” they believe, “results in meaningful and enjoyable artistic creations.”
The Project Fusion concert is part of the National Music Festival’s fall-to-spring monthly Resonance chamber music series. For individual tickets as well as annual NMF and Resonance passes, go to: https://nationalmusic.us/events-and-tickets/tickets/