An integral part of being a musician is knowing how to play many different types of music. They can range from up-tempo to sad and slow, but a good musician must play with fire and gusto regardless of the piece’s ilk. Keith Bohm, a professor of saxophone, music theory and choral music at Sacramento State, decided that students needed to be aware of just this.

Every semester he orchestrates a faculty recital, and this year he has something timely in mind: duets for alto saxophone and piano from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries with pianist Professor John Cozza.

“I do it for my students so they get to hear me playing,” Bohm said. “It’s a great way for them to hear a variety of repertoire. It’s also an opportunity for the community to get to hear us play.”

He chose the music with plenty of easy listening in mind. The pieces come from three different cultural sources: France, Belgium and America. Bohm has chosen pieces that illustrate time difference so that an audience can hear pieces from 2007 to 1929 to 1866.

“Even though you’ve got three centuries of music they’re all very melodic, very easy to listen to,” Bohm said. “They’re virtuosic; they show off the saxophone and the piano quite nicely. Especially the trio.”

The performers will be joined by flautist Maquette Kuper for the most recently written piece, Russell Peterson’s “Trio for Alto Saxophone, Flute and Piano.”

Bohm is also artistic director for November’s Festival of New American Music, one of the largest music festivals in the world. He has been playing saxophone for nearly 27 years, and has been the genesis behind many students going on in the study of music and, more specifically, saxophone.

“He’s just a really good teacher,” Brien Gadeke, a sophomore, Music Education major and 10-year saxophone player, said. “He taught me more stuff in a year than I’ve learned since I’ve been playing saxophone.”

Bohm was born to musically literate parents. His father played trombone and his mother accordion. By his birth they had both stopped playing, but he feels his parents may have influenced his future in music.

“I wanted to do something they had done, but not play an instrument that they had played. Brass was out. Piano was out. Happened to be a woodwind.”

The faculty recital will be held in Capistrano Hall, Room 151 on Wednesday at 8 p.m.

Maxwell McKee can be reached at [email protected].