(B)amboo and Steel
by Wisuwat Pruksavanich
[2025]

Composer Note:

     (B)amboo and Steel is a composition for the Bun Leng Project, featuring Wisuwat Pruksavanich and Guillermo Presa, to perform at the 20th World Saxophone Congress 2025.

    This piece explores the fusion of two distinct cultural elements. Bamboo symbolizes Thai tradition. Throughout history, bamboo has played an essential role in Thai life—used in housing, tools, and especially musical instruments. In contrast, Steel represents the Western industrial era. It was central to the Industrial Revolution and is emblematic of heavy metal music, a genre named after metals like steel and iron, known for its sonic intensity and themes of industrial power and aggression.

    Bamboo and Steel reflects this cultural juxtaposition, blending the organic and historical qualities of bamboo with the raw, mechanical energy of steel.

    The composition employs extended saxophone techniques such as multiphonics, slap-tongue, and alternate fingerings. However, its core musical idea lies in microtonality, which emerges naturally through the use of alternate fingerings. Often, both saxophonists will play the same notated pitch using different fingerings, producing subtle pitch differences—one slightly higher, the other lower. This deliberate dissonance is a key expressive element, and performers are encouraged to embrace it confidently, rather than trying to blend the pitches into a single tone.