June Emerson Wind Music: Malcolm Arnold

Jess Gillam's World

Part 4

“One of the best young saxophonists in the UK”
– Snake Davis

October has been a great month for me. After finishing the filming with Barbara Thompson and Jon Hiseman (see JGW part 3), I had two performances of Malcolm Arnold's Saxophone Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Strings to prepare for. The piece was originally a piano sonata and was arranged as a concerto by David Ellis at the request of Malcolm Arnold. At first when learning the work, I had some difficulties in understanding the music and the emotion it was trying to convey. I decided that to understand it better, I needed to know a little more about the composer and the inspirations for the music he wrote, so I listened to some interesting podcasts about Malcolm Arnold and began to realise why there was an underlying tinge of darkness to the music. Another aspect of learning a concerto I have difficulty with is memorising it - I really struggle to remember my entries and the order of the notes! I knew this was going to be the case so I have had a photocopy of the score stuck on my bedroom wall since July; I do this with all pieces I have to memorise, and then repeat the passages I have difficulty remembering as much as I can. I have always found this difficult but once it is memorised, I think I can be much more expressive and take more risks with the music.

Jess with conductor John Gibbons

The first performance was at the Worthing Assembly Hall with the Worthing Symphony Orchestra under the baton of acclaimed conductor John Gibbons. The second was at the Malcolm Arnold Festival at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton. I enjoyed both performances very much – performing with an orchestra is an experience I love and I find it so different to performing with piano or unaccompanied. I fee like I have to consider everything I play in a much different way and that I have to be fully aware of my role in the piece as a whole at every moment in the piece. I was very pleased with the reviews from both performances!

Jess with Malcolm Arnold Festival Director, Paul Harris

I have also been working on promoting the next event in the concert series I organise – a concert with John Harle and Steve Lodder. I am really looking forward to this performance; I think John Harle is such an inspiring musician and saxophonist and to see him perform live will be fantastic. I am also going to be performing a piece called ‘Berlin Tango” with John!

As I am writing this blog, my younger sister Patsy is playing bass at a gig at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester with her band “Pesky!” to over 40,000 people. I can only dream of a concert this big one day!

LINKS

John Harle Concert - Friday 13th November @ 7.30pm

Book Tickets

www.jessgillamsax.co.uk

Follow Jess Gillam on Facebook

Follow @jessgillamsax on Twitter

Yanagisawa Saxophones UK

www.yanagisawasaxophones.co.uk

Vandoren UK

www.vandoren-en.com

Jess Gillam's World

Part 3

“Stage animal”

– BBC Young Musician 2014

This weekend, I have spent two days filming a music video for “The Sky’s the Limit”, a piece written for me by renowned saxophonist and composer Barbara Thompson. Barbara and her husband, Jon Hiseman, came up to the Lake District for three days with Asue Azar to film me playing the piece in various locations with stunning scenery.

“The Sky’s the Limit” was written for me to perform at the World Saxophone Congress in July and is a piece for alto saxophone, piano and strings. Barbara says, “It leads the saxophone into groundbreaking areas while retaining melodic and rhythmical elements. The saxophone is a very exciting instrument to write for because it has so many variations of tone and colour and the player can make his or her sound unique. It is a real treat to write a piece for such a talented young 17-year-old saxophonist, and I hope this will be the first of many collaborations”.

Jess with Barbara Thompson

Filming the video was a very interesting experience and I enjoyed learning about how this world works and it also gave me a chance to appreciate the natural beauty of where I come from. However, I was a little nervous playing on the top of a crag looking over Windermere – I wasn’t expecting an audience and people were gathering round to see what was happening! The sound in open air just did not travel no matter how much I attempted to project and make the sound sing. I began playing saxophone when I was 7 in the Barracudas carnival band so I am quite used to playing on the streets but this was quite different – no PA and no buildings for the sound to bounce off meant I could only produce a very dead sound. This meant I had to think about all other elements of playing a piece of music a lot more because I knew there wasn’t very much I could do about the sound projection so I considered rhythmic accuracy, dynamic control, vibrato control and articulation in a much more meticulous way than I usually do but the performance was not comparable to one indoors where all of these elements can be projected!

Jess playing to the elements!

We also filmed at Birkrigg Common, very close to where I live. Jon asked me to stand on the trig point and this was quite a scary place to perform the piece – I am very clumsy at the best of times and playing without being able to move took a lot of concentration!

Working with Barbara and Jon has been a truly inspirational experience – they are both so dedicated and passionate about what they do and really live and breathe music. They have both had very successful and varied careers and listening to their anecdotes and stories about gigs and the lengths they used to have to go to even just to record music is fascinating! Barbara has inspired me with her music since I was 12 years old and to now be working with her is quite a surreal experience! 8 years ago, Barbara was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and the way she continues, still composing and creating music, is quite unbelievable.

Jess at Windermere

Jon is now editing the video and it will be released on YouTube once the editing and recording has been completed.

I have also spent a lot of time this month practicing the Malcolm Arnold Saxophone Concerto as I will be performing it with the Worthing Symphony Orchestra in October at the Malcolm Arnold Festival in Northampton and at the Worthing Assembly Hall. Preparing a concerto is something I really enjoy and trying to connect information about a composer with the themes and moods in their music is fascinating and I am really looking forward to performing the piece.