'Three Letter Word' composed by Andy Scott

‘Three Letter Word’, commissioned by the Park Lane Group, was premiered in 2010 by renowned saxophonist Huw Wiggin and pianist Timothy Abel at the Southbank Centre in London for the PLG Young Artists New Year Series. The piece is dedicated to the Swedish composer/pianist Esbjorn Svensson, who tragically died in a diving accident in June 2008. 


“I was fortunate enough to hear Esbjorn Svensson in concert at the IAJE Conference in New York City in January 2006, where I was also performing with duo partner, percussionist Dave Hassell. In the afternoon he practised for two hours, playing classical music, and in the evening his trio, E.S.T., produced an amazing show of virtuosity and creativity, coupling inventive compositions with daring improvisations within very individual sound worlds…The title of this piece, Three Letter Word, came about from coincidence and names or phrases that may be abbreviated: Esbjorn Svensson's group, the commissioning body, the players that the piece was written for, and maybe most importantly given the dedicatee, the words 'rest in peace’.” Andy Scott

’Three Letter Word’ is proving to be an extremely popular piece among saxophonists worldwide, and the flute and piano version was recorded by the brilliant Paul Edmund-Davies (flute) and Peter Lawson (piano) on the ‘Bad Tempered Flute’ album.

Many performances of ‘Three Letter Word’ can be found online from musicians all over the world, including the performance shown above featuring Kenta Saito & Aki Matsumoto, and below featuring Chad Lilley & Liz Ames. 
The piece features on the album ‘Westland’ a collaboration between Andy Scott, Timothy McAllister & Liz Ames. Visit astute-music.com to pick up your hard copy or PDF copy of the score for ‘Three Letter Word’ as well as the recorded version on the album ‘Westland’.