"Hustle (sleep when you're dead)" (2023) for Alto Saxophone and Piano by Joshua Haugen

"Hustle (sleep when you're dead)" from "5 Portraits of Domestic Life" for Alto Saxophone and Piano by Joshua Haugen
This is the first of 5 movements that comprised my thesis for my MM degree in composition.
"Work is central to what I’ve come to learn about being a human; no body can ever stay at rest. From the agricultural revolution to the industrial, work is how we advance and make life function. We can’t seem to slow down though. There has a cultural and societal expectation of maintaining a constant state of work, finding extra income source after extra income source to only make it some margin ahead of living paycheck to paycheck. Many refer to this as “hustle” culture, or a focus on constant productivity and overly ambitious goals at there expense of self-care and balance. This has become a staple of many lives for decades, especially in the 2010s and 2020s, and something that was unflinching even in the midst of events like the pandemic.
A frantic, highly chromatic toccata that is set in a constant state of spinning out of control, this movement encapsulates the nature of ‘hustle culture’. Not only a toxic, fundamentally anti-human cycle of perpetual exhaustion, this culture, much akin to the piece, holds the keys to its own demise."
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For an explanation of the notation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2eWnWZsm7-fsKc