JESS GILLAM AND BRITTEN SINFONIA
Performers
- Britten Sinfonia
- Jess Gillam
- saxophone
- Thomas Gould
- violin / director
Programme
- Programme to include:
- CPE Bach
- "Allegro Assai" from Flute Concerto in A Minor
- Thomas Adès
- "O Albion" from Arcadiana
- Vaughan Williams
- Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Dave Heath
- The Celtic
- Shostakovich arr. Rudolf Barshai
- Chamber Symphony in C minor
Sensational saxophonist Jess Gillam joins Britten Sinfonia to celebrate Saffron Hall's 10th birthday.
Dave Heath’s heart-on-sleeve concerto is a love letter to his former adopted home in Fife. It dazzles, shimmers and dances, unmistakably Scottish in origin. Its slow movement shares a spacious grandeur with perhaps Vaughan Williams’ signature work constructed around an ancient English hymn tune. There is a hymn-like quality to Adès’ hushed nostalgia-fuelled arrangement from his string quartet Arcadiana whilst Shostakovich’s symphony (also an enlargement of a string quartet) is by contrast fiercely impassioned and intensely dramatic. Like other works in this programme it seems to offer us tantalising glimpses of the past, of other music, whilst retaining a vibrant personality of its own.
