Jess Gillam / RISING STAR
Program:
Poulenc: Oboe Sonata, FP 185
Graham Fitkin: Gate
A. Marcello: Oboe Concerto in D minor, S.Z799
Edmund Finnis: new work (commissioned by ECHO - Hungarian première)
Weill: Je ne t'aime pas
Wiedoeft: Valse Vanité
Featuring:
saxophone Jess Gillam
piano Zeynep Özsuca
An important theme of the Rising Stars concerts is that the musicians stepping onto the stage do not necessarily play the most commonly heard solo instruments: The goal of the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) goes far beyond just introducing pianists, violinists and cellists, so we have already heard oboes, clarinets, trumpets, harpists and accordians. Now it is the turn of the saxophone: The instrument created in the 19th century is indispensable in jazz music, but it has also been used by composers like Ravel and Kodály. Now we will be introduced to its young British virtuoso.
Jess Gillam, who turns 21 this year, won the Classic Brit Award and was the first saxophonist in the history of the BBC Young Musician competition to reach the final. He is a passionate and dedicated player of his instrument. He was only 15 when he held a TEDx talk on the saxophone, which has now been watched more than 100,000 times on YouTube. He grew up in the Cumbrian town of Ulverstone in the north-east of England and is currently a student of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester - yet the young man with a suggestive performance style has already signed an exclusive contract with the Decca Classics record label. It is part of his musical credo that he wishes to reform the concert experience: he would like, for example, for the audience to be allowed to dance, clap and cry out between movements - he believes these instinctive reactions are expressions of the joy of music. At his Rising Stars debut, he will perform works from several 20th- and 21st- century composers - and of course arrangements of compositions originally written for oboe. Another Brit, Edmund Finnis, has been commissioned by ECHO to write a new piece for Jess Gillam. Top specialist publications have used words like 'magical', 'iridescent', 'remarkable' and 'ethereally beautiful' to describe his music.
Nominated for the Rising Stars programme by: Sage Gateshead
