LJF 2017 – Royal Festival Hall & BBC CO, 606 Jazz Club

Last weekend was totally brilliant, if slightly mad!

On Saturday I had the honour of playing alongside the legend saxophonist Peter King at the 606 Jazz Club’s Saxophone Summit. Here’s me (with Alex Hitchcock and Vasilis Xenopoulos) looking in awe at the man himself!

Then on Sunday I premiered ‘Loujean & Lucy’ at the Royal Festival Hall – a piece of music that has dominated my thoughts since June! It was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and written for the BBC Concert Orchestra, me on tenor saxophone and Ross Stanley on piano. Such a brilliant experience. We were conducted by Holly Mathieson, who was absolutely fantastic to work with. Ross and I took advantage of the fact that the hall has a fairly amazing organ and performed a duo version of ‘A Cat called Behemoth’ too. There will be a BBC Radio 3 broadcast at some point so please watch this space…

A few days before I spoke on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour about the story behind ‘Loujean & Lucy’, so please take a listen to get the background… http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09cvxbj My bit is at 34.23

And here are a few photos… Ross and I before we go on, Ross and I playing duo above the orchestra, and with conductor Holly Mathieson after premiering ‘Loujean & Lucy’