Jess Gillam's World

March 2016

Jess Gillam is now a 

June Emerson Wind Music Young Artist 

What a month! I have been busy this month competing in and preparing for the BBC Young Musician competition. In January, the Category Finalists for the 2016 competition were announced and I was delighted to have reached the Woodwind Final. The Woodwind Final took place at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on March 7th but until the programme has been televised, the results have to remain secret!

BBC Young Musician - BBC Four coverage

BBC Young Musician - Concerto Final

Entering and being a part of this competition has been a fantastic experience and I really have learned a lot from it. The competition offers such a huge platform for young musicians and I have loved being a part of it.

Preparing for the Category Final was extremely enjoyable for me. The thing I focused on most was trying to be in complete control of my saxophone at every single point in the performance. I attempted to work out the absolute extremities of my playing at both loud and quiet dynamics. Often, especially in performance, I lose control of the instrument when I am playing loudly and I was determined not to let that happen in this performance so I worked on tone quality and control as much as possible.

Rob Buckland

I worked on this with Rob Buckland in my lessons quite a lot; pitching and thinking about every single note was something we regularly worked on but I knew it was going to be difficult to replicate in a performance! With John Harle, I had also been working on having an absolute sense of presence during the entire performance and this helped me to stay completely focused throughout. I was quite nervous before I performed but once I had stepped onto the stage, I didn’t have any room left in my head for nerves! I knew the only thing I could think about was the music and performing it the best I could.

Jess & John Harle

Something I often find difficult is thinking about the music as a whole at the same time as thinking about each individual note. I think every note has a certain importance but I think that the overall shape and mood of the music is a lot more important and I have been finding it difficult to strike a balance between these two ideas. I think learning the pieces from memory helped me with this as I was able to think about the shape and the overall movement in the piece while simultaneously remembering that I can only play one note at any one time and all I should be thinking about is that very note!

I absolutely love performing and the adrenaline and risks that go along with it and this was a performance I certainly did enjoy – I hope you will too if you manage to watch it! The Woodwind Final will be televised on BBC Four on Friday 15th April.

LINKS

www.jessgillamsax.co.uk

Follow Jess Gillam on Facebook

Follow @jessgillamsax on Twitter

BBC Young Musician - BBC Four coverage
BBC Young Musician - Concerto Final

Yanagisawa Saxophones UK

www.yanagisawasaxophones.co.uk

Vandoren UK

www.vandoren-en.com

Jess Gillam's World

February 2016

“One of the best young saxophonists in the UK” 

- Snake Davis

I have had such a great month! I have mainly been preparing for my BBC Young Musician Category Final Audition next month and have also performed a concerto with the Junior RNCM Symphony Orchestra.

Jess rehearsing 'Out of the Cool' by Dave Heath
with the Junior RNCM Symphony Orchestra

On Saturday, I performed Dave Heath’s “Out of the Cool” with the Junior RNCM Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall in Manchester conducted by Juan Ortuno. As I have said in previous blogs, I absolutely love performing concertos and I find the experience truly enjoyable – there is something about standing in front of an orchestra and performing a piece with so many different colours and sounds. Having rehearsed the concerto with the orchestra considerably more than if I was performing with a professional orchestra, I felt as though I knew the orchestral parts well and I felt very involved with the music.

Being filmed for BBC Young Musician

Some of the rehearsal for the concerto performance was filmed by BBC Young Musician to use in the backstory before my performance in the Woodwind Finals. I have been spending a lot of my time over the past month preparing for the competition, which will be televised in April/May. I have had to find a balanced practice routine where I can stay energised and focused throughout the whole of the session to ensure that I don’t practice bad habits.

Jess performing with John Harle

I have had lessons with John Harle and Rob Buckland and they have both helped me to find a practice routine that is focused and beneficial! As well as filming the concerto rehearsal, the BBC also filmed one of my lessons with John Harle in Canterbury, an interview with Rob Buckland and they also came to film in Ulverston (my home town) to interview me. I have enjoyed the filming very much and I am very interested to see how it will be edited!

BBC Young Musician of the Year 2016

I will be spending the next month focusing, researching and practicing my programme for the BBC Competition!

LINKS

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

Launchpad Prize Winners' Profile No.5: Abelia Saxophone Quartet

THE PLAYERS

Emma McPhilemy - soprano sax

Hannah Corcoran - alto sax

Isobel Williams - tenor sax

Catherine Hanson - baritone sax

BIOGRAPHY

The Abelia Saxophone Quartet are a young and energetic Manchester-based ensemble currently studying at the Royal Northern College of Music under the tuition of Rob Buckland. Recently, they have been awarded the Trevor Wye Woodwind Chamber Prize and have also been named the RNCM Ensemble of The Year; The Chris Rowland Prize.

Abelia Sax Quartet with Timothy McAllister

During their time at RNCM so far the group have received coaching from chamber music specialists such as Carl Raven, Andy Scott and Huw Wiggin and have performed in public masterclasses for Johan Van Der Linden, Ainars Ŝablovskis and for Timothy McAllister at the World Saxophone Congress 2015 in Strasbourg. The quartet recently commissioned new works by RNCM composers as part of a January 2015 composition festival, and followed this with a live performance on BBC Radio 3 contributing to the ‘BBC Young Artists Day’.

The group has given recitals at venues including The Cosmo Rodewald Hall (University of Manchester) and The Carole Nash Recital Room (RNCM) as part of the Spotlight Concert Series, Buxton Opera House, The Lowry (Salford Quays) and many other local venues. Abelia have also accompanied Philippe Geiss in his solo feature recital at the RNCM Saxophone Day 2014 and are looking forward to recitals later this year at St Martin-in-the-Fields (London) and Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester).

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

Friday 30th October @ 1pm

Bury

Monday 2nd November @ 1pm

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London

DETAILS

Friday 6th November @ 1pm

Cross Street Chapel, Manchester

Wednesday 25th November @ 1pm

St Ann's Church, Manchester

DETAILS

Sunday 6th December @ 3pm

Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

LINKS

www.abeliasaxophonequartet.com
abeliasaxquartet@outlook.com

abeliasax.tumblr.com

June Emerson Wind Music would like to thank Rob Buckland for organising the 

awarding of the Launchpad Prize at the Royal Northern College of Music.

www.rncm.ac.uk

Jess Gillam's World - Part 1

Jess Gillam - Welcome to my world!

“One of the best young saxophonists in the UK” 

-Snake Davis

Hello everybody, I am delighted to have been asked to write a blog for June Emerson Wind Music about music from a young person's perspective! I am a 17 year old saxophonist from Ulverston in Cumbria and I study at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Each month, I will write a little about performances and musical events I have been involved with and my life as a young musician.

July has been an exciting month and I have had some musical experiences I will never forget. One of these was performing a solo recital at SaxOpen (the World Saxophone Congress) in Strasbourg. I was the youngest of 2,600 delegates and performing to a room of saxophonists was a challenging task. Usually, I know that most of the audience will be unaware of details about saxophone technique and simply want to hear good music, but when performing to a room of people who know everything about the saxophone, it is quite nerve-wracking! However, I think emotions that music can convey and the power that music has is the most important thing to capture in a performance, so I tried to play just as I would if I was in front of a typical concert audience. 

My recital consisted of world premières of commissions from leading saxophonists: Barbara Thompson, Rob Buckland and John Harle, as well as one of my own compositions. All the pieces were written for saxophone with backing tracks. The whole experience of commissioning new works and working with the composers was very interesting and I really enjoyed performing the premières. My concert was on Day Two of the Congress which was the perfect time as I felt truly inspired by some of the performances I had seen the night before. Barbara Thompson's Concerto for Three Saxophones was performed with the Strasbourg Symphony Orchestra and soloists Rob Buckland, Francesco Cafiso and Michael Alizon each performed a movement. The third movement was performed by Rob Buckland on soprano saxophone - the connection he had with the music was very apparent and the rapport with the orchestra made the music come alive and really sing. It was a remarkable performance and a fantastic composition - I felt proud to have pieces written for me by Barbara and Rob and lucky to know them both and be taught by Rob. 

The Congress was the perfect place to meet saxophonists from around the world and to catch up with others. I met Mr Yanagisawa and, as I am a Yanagisawa Artist, I was very pleased to be able to meet him and thank him. I also met Hidemasa Sato who made part of the new Alto WO that I play, and it was lovely to be able to thank him for his skilled craftsmanship. 

After returning home from the Congress, I performed with the National Youth Jazz Collective Creative Leadership Ensemble at the Benslow Music Centre and then started planning and practising repertoire for what promises to be a very busy Autumn! 

www.jessgillamsax.co.uk

Follow Jess Gillam on Facebook

Follow @jessgillamsax on Twitter

LINKS

Yanagisawa Saxophones UK

www.yanagisawasaxophones.co.uk

Vandoren UK

www.vandoren-en.com