The Coral Sea

for soprano saxophone and piano
The Coral Sea takes its title and structure from the prose poem of the same name that Patti Smith wrote as a memorial to the great photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989. The piece's seventeen sections follow Patti Smith's division into a Prologue, for piano alone, Voyage, a series of contrasting episodes, and after a fierce climax, a final Litany which begins with a monody for unaccompanied saxophone.