This album features world premiere recordings of some of Sam Hayden’s most significant acoustic music for solos and duos, performed by an array of internationally renowned contemporary music specialists. The works on this album span three decades, from the earlier works, the lyrical Picking up the Pieces for solo violin and the angular textures of AXE[S] for solo guitar (both from the 1990s), to the much more recent attente for solo flute, remnants for solo contrabass clarinet, frammenti di divenire for soprano and baritone saxophones, and remnants III for cello and piano (all composed since 2018) representing something of a hybrid of approaches from traditions of spectralism and complexity.

A feature of this album is that most of the works were developed in close collaboration with the performers who appear on the album, making full use of their exceptional virtuosity and a deep engagement with specific sonic characteristics of the instrument(s). Sam Hayden is a composer whose work contains much diversity and variety in its modernism; he is currently Professor of Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. He has received commissions recently from a substantial number of ensembles and soloists, from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Sinfonietta to ensembles around Europe.