Formed in 1985 the Apollo Saxophone Quartet has enjoyed four decades at the forefront of the UK classical music scene. During this time, the group has without doubt made the largest single contribution to the repertoire for saxophone quartet in the UK, commissioning and premiering well over 100 works, many of which are now considered core repertoire and are performed by saxophone quartets worldwide. This includes significant works from Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Michael Torke, Michael Nyman, Graham Fitkin, Will Gregory, Dominic Muldowney, Keith Tippett, Django Bates, Barbara Thompson and Joby Talbot, to name but a few.
For this concert, the group presents a performance of two contrasting halves. The first set features five commissions from the quartet’s 2022/23 season - engaging and varied new works from some of the most exciting new generation of UK composers, each of which showcases different aspects of the sound world of the saxophone quartet, creating moods, colours and textures ranging from the sublime and ethereal to driving energetic and rhythmically compelling.
The second set features the Quartet’s acclaimed music with silent film project. Expect acrobatic flies, dancing pigs, collapsing bridges, drunken hallucinations, exploding heads and an infernal cakewalk, all beautifully set to music and performed live to film in the age-old tradition from the very first years of the moving image.
We are delighted to announce that the Quartet will also be the guest artists for our Annual Schools Concert from 2-3pm.
To find out more about the artists, see Apollo Saxophone Quartet
Photo credit: Charlotte Wellings
With kind support from Skipton Rotary
Skipton Music Goes to the Films
Skipton Music’s 2024-25 season continued with this intriguing and rewarding evening with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, made possible through the kind support of Skipton Rotary.
The first half consisted of five new pieces commissioned by the quartet. If anyone had been thinking of the saxophone as primarily associated with jazz, these pieces would have come as a surprise. True, one or two had resonances of modern jazz, especially Claire Cope’s ‘Trapped’ which opened the programme; but in general all five pieces, and the encore at the end of the programme composed by a member of the quartet, were more concerned with exploring the rich and varied sonorities afforded by four different instruments of the same family. There were many exquisite moments, not least the breathtakingly soft sounds of Rob Buckland’s soprano saxophone at the very top of its range; and the interplay between the static chords and the wave-like motive passed from instrument to instrument in the group’s encore.
In the second half the audience were taken to the cinema, to be more precise to the very earliest days of cine films, with a sequence of seven black and white films accompanied by compositions by members of the group. The films were fascinating in their own right, but our enjoyment was enormously enhanced by the scores, which perfectly complemented their zany and frenetic – and sometimes downright spooky – character.
A shorter version of the programme was presented earlier in the day to an enthusiastic audience of children from local schools. Let’s hope that many of those who came will be inspired to take up this versatile and wonderful instrument!
Charles Dobson