Every end of October and beginning of November, I think about the “Rencontres autour du Saxophone Baryton” which are held in Ambazac (France) between 2008 and 2011 in those dates. After a double missed attempt to hold a fifth edition in 2012 and 2013, this year I am missing its spirit of sharing knowledge during those days.

These summits, organised by Eric Devallon and Damien Royannais (always my point of reference on the classical baritone saxophone), had lot of activities (concerts, workshops, talks, stuff tests, etc.) that served us to update different topics about this instrument.

Every year we were able to check the wide repertoire of the “Association Bar&Co” (always growing, as you could see here), the issues from “Éditions Bar&Co” (the first publishing specialized on the baritone saxophone repertoire) and we listened to lot of works, including premieres.

We also had the opportunity to meet some composers who have written some important pieces for this instrument as José Luís Campana, Sergio Fidemraizer, Sixto Herrero, Christian Lauba, Dominique Soulat and Isabel Urrutia, among others, and to share experiences with reknown saxophonists such as Serge Bertocchi, Richard Ducros, Philippe Geiss, Willem van Merwijk and Gilles Tressos, among others.

All these experiences and knowledge encouraged me definitely to specialize in the baritone saxophone and gave me lot of ideas for my musical projects in the future.

The 17th World Saxophone Congress is coming and it would be a great occasion for the baritonists from all over the world to profit from meeting each other (pay attention, this is not a proposition to do a parallel congress!), to listen to us and to provide ideas for the future of our instrument…

If it makes sense, see you in Strasbourg.