Machines roar, race, remember, and dream in this program exploring the boundary between human imagination and mechanical power. William Bolcom’s Machine launches the concert with relentless momentum, while Saunder Choi’s Locomotion transforms the pulse of a train into a vivid portrait of Philippine commuter life. Mason Bates’s Observer in the Magellanic Cloud sends a robotic satellite across deep time to glimpse an ancient Earth, and Shuying Li’s The Last Hive Mind pits artificial intelligence against a fragile human lullaby.

The concert features SJSU saxophone professor Dr. Michael Hernandez, as well as David Cortez, winner of the 2026 SJSU Concerto Competition, in a consortium premiere of Alan Theisen’s Archaic Machines, a genre-blurring baritone saxophone concerto in which jazz, funk, mystery, and science fiction collide.

   
PROGRAM

Lichtweg/Lightway by Jennifer Jolley

Sonic Pathways by Nathan Hervey

Tight Squeeze by Alex Shapiro 

Escapade by Nicole Piunno
CONSORTIUM PREMIERE

Dr. Michael Hernandez, alto saxophone

Synthetic Sunlight by Steven Bryant

SJSU Symphonic Band
Dr. Grant Knox, conductor

INTERMISSION

Machine (from Fifth Symphony) by William Bolcom arr. by Paul Lavender
Dillon Braisher, conductor
Observer in the Magellanic Cloud by Mason Bates arr. by David Vickerman
The Last Hive Mind by Shuying Li
Locomotion by Saunder Choi
Archaic Machines by Alan Theisen
CONSORTIUM PREMIERE
David Cortez, baritone saxophone
1. Madness in Any Direction
2. Midnite Trip
3. Corrupted Files from Galactic Planets

SJSU Wind Ensemble
Dr. David Vickerman, conductor
Dillon Braisher, graduate conductor