Countdown to Midnight at Carnaval | for Saxophone and Orchestra
Duration: 11 Minutes
Instrumentation: 3333 / 4331 / timp (and cymbal) + 3 perc / full strings
Commissioned by the Susan Rhind Award 2022
Premiered in 2022 by the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra. 
Performed and Recorded by the NZSO during the 2023 NZ Composer Sessions.
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Countdown to Midnight at Carnaval was inspired by my own experience of the world-renowned Carnival (or Carnaval in Portuguese) which I was able to attend for a single night in early 2020. Carnaval is an annual Brazilian festival held on the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival", from carnelevare, "to remove (literally, "raise") meat."
 
Carnaval has grown to become the biggest festival in Brazil (and perhaps the world), with parades and parties being held across the country over many weeks. Rio de Janeiro's Carnaval in 2011 drew 4.9 million people alone, including 400,000 visitors who came just to celebrate the festival!
 
Although Carnaval celebrations in Brazil were suspended for the first time 108 years due to COVID-19, this piece might help you to imagine the excitement of the Carnaval at midnight: the slow build as people flock to the festival, leading to an explosion of parades and parties that creates a wonderful chorus of celebration, followed by a gradual fade-away as everyone drifts off into their own celebrations and the Carnaval winds down for the night - only for the party to start again the next day.