Santtu and Jess Gillam

Ebullient saxophonist Jess Gillam joins the Philharmonia and our Principal Conductor Santtu for an irresistible Sunday matinee.

In her mid-twenties, Jess Gillam has more achievements under her belt than most – an MBE for services to music, a Classical BRIT award, her own show on BBC Radio 3 (This Classical Life), and appearances at the BBC Proms both as their youngest-ever soloist and as a presenter. Her infectious enthusiasm for music lights up every venue she performs in. Now she turns that full beam on Glazunov’s 1934 Saxophone Concerto, a gem of a piece that cemented the saxophone’s place in classical music almost a century after it was invented.

Shostakovich’s Moscow Cheryomushki is a satirical operetta. A blend of slapstick fun and wry social commentary, it’s named after a real 1950s housing development in the suburbs of Moscow. The four-movement suite is a delight well worth discovering. It opens in lively mood with ‘A Spin Through Moscow’, and captures the characters’ high spirits as they take on bureaucracy and corruption, and triumph.

Our Principal Conductor Santtu has chosen his own highlights from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to complete this afternoon’s programme. All the best bits from the ballet are here, from the pent-up aggression of the ‘Dance of the Knights’ (also known as ‘The Montagues and the Capulets’, or more recently as the theme tune of The Apprentice) to the heartbreak of ‘Juliet’s Funeral’.