Southwestern Michigan College’s first spring-semester instrumental recital Jan. 28 featured Leo Schlaifer, adjunct instructor of saxophone.

Accompanying Schlaifer, who has been teaching at SMC since September 2023, were two other saxophonists, a composer who detests gossip and an unlikely flock of birds.

Schlaifer holds master’s degrees in saxophone performance and chamber music from the University of Michigan. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Northwestern University.

Schlaifer opened on alto saxophone with “Tableu IX” by Tyson Gholston Davis, studying at The Juilliard School in New York.

Schlaifer switched to soprano saxophone to team with alto saxophonist Matthew Dardick on University of Michigan product Adrian Wong’s “Slurp!” — I. Espresso Presto and II. soda/coke/pop/soda pop.

“It’s based on the effects of consuming different beverages,” Schlaifer said of the piece by Wong, born in 1999, raised in Hong Kong and now based in Philadelphia.

“Deep Flowers” is by Evan Chambers, one of Wong’s U-M professors.

“It is heavily inspired by music from (the Indonesian island of) Java,” Schlaifer explained.

Before intermission, Schlaifer paired with soprano saxophonist and roommate Harry Xie on “Staying the Night.” Xie read the poem by Robert Fanning about the grief of losing a sister which inspired composer David Biedenbender.

“This is actually the first time Harry and I have ever performed together,” Schlaifer said.

Ty Bloomfield, born in Chicago in 2000, is the young U-M composer responsible for “Gossip, Whispers and Other Drama,” which Schlaifer and Dardick premiered.

Coming onstage in the theatre of the Dale A. Lyons Building, Bloomfield said of the five movements – I. spreading rumors, II. faking a friendship, III. passive aggression, IV. smack talk and V. shouting at each other, “It’s been great to put this piece together with Leo and Matt over the past year and a half. I don’t like talking about people, I don’t like people talking about me. I’m an introvert who doesn’t like doing any of that.

“You’re going to hear theatrical sounds that paint that drama, so if you feel like laughing at any point, go for it. My feelings won’t be hurt.”

Bloomfield, who began composing in 2019, graduated from Illinois State University in 2023 and is currently pursuing his master’s degree in composition at U-M.

Schlaifer performed “Singing Over the Seas” by Estonian composer Tonu Korvits.

Feathers flew for the finale, Nelson Walker’s “An Unlikely Flock,” nine miniature character studies of different birds, each paired with an original haiku — duck, hummingbird, Indian peafowl, northern cardinal, raven, red-bellied woodpecker, red-tailed hawk, turkey vulture and wood-wren.

Dardick is Schlaifer’s collaborator in Lati2de, a Chicago-based chamber ensemble formed in November 2018 and dedicated to the expansion and diversification of repertoire for saxophone duos.

Determined to continue making music during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lati2de sought to commission a work capable of live or virtual performance.

In the fall of 2020, Lati2de formed a consortium of 13 saxophone duos to commission such a piece from composer Andrew Faulkenberry, published in February 2021.

“There’s a lot of saxophone quartet music,” Schlaifer said, “but not a lot for duets.”