Under the Skin

Under the Skin, Evan Zegiel (2024)for heckelphone/bass oboe or tenor saxophone and heavy metal band  When my colleague Tim Michling reached out to me about composing a heavy metal piece for the bass oboe, I couldn’t possibly say “no!” Bass oboe?! YES, PLEASE! Luckily, for those without a bass oboe, it also works well on tenor saxophone. Tim and I quickly found out that we both share the trinity of disorders, love progressive metal, and have had strikingly similar life experiences in dealing with them. I and deeply grateful to Tim for the opportunity to create this piece for him. The catharsis I have felt throughout composing it has been immeasurable. The title Under the Skin, in addition to capturing the feeling of living with “the trifecta,” takes its name from a poignant quote in Solomon’s book: “Depression is just under the skin, all the surface of the body has the depression just below it, and we cannot take it out; but we can try to forget the depression even though it is right th