大象传媒

Live from Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall
Presented by Tom Redmond

Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin (Suite)
Debussy: Rhapsody for alto saxophone and orchestra
Glazunov: Saxophone Concerto

8.15
Music interval

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5

Jess Gillam (alto saxophone)
大象传媒 Philharmonic
Ben Gernon (conductor)

In a live broadcast from the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham the 大象传媒 Philharmonic is joined by their Principal Guest Conductor, Ben Gernon, and saxophonist Jess Gillam. The programme opens with "an awful clamour, chatter, stampeding and blowing of horns" - that's Bartok's own description of the overwhelming city-scape that opens his ballet (or "pantomime" as he preferred to call it) The Miraculous Mandarin. A tale of sex, violence and murderous cruelty, the ballet was staged in 1926 but taken off after only one performance; this suite was virtually the only way the music could be heard for many years. After the interval we hear Tchaikovsky's satisfying Fifth Symphony. Here, dance of a totally different kind radiates from this Technicolour music, some of which could almost come from one of his ballets. Before that, Jess Gillam joins the orchestra for a performance of Gazunov's rarely-heard warm and lyrical Saxophone Concerto, and also invites us to join her on a journey into the unique and magical sound-world of Debussy's Rhapsody for alto saxophone.