Conductor: Peter Evans; Saxophone: Richard Ingham

Copland: Music for Theatre
Beamish: Under the Wing of the Rock (for alto sax. and strings)
Ingham: Lullaby of Birdland (arr. for saxophone and orchestra)
Parry: Blue Note Sinfonia (premiere)
Gershwin: An American in Paris

This concert by the MCO is dedicated to pieces influenced in one way or another by jazz. Copland’s youthful and daring Broadway-influenced score, Music for the Theatre is complemented at the end of the concert by George Gershwin’s wonderfully evocative, exciting and tuneful tone poem, An American in Paris.

As in almost every MCO concert we also have a new work, in this case a special commission from Ben Parry – conductor, composer, teacher and former Swingle-Singer. He has written a three-movement Blue Note Sinfonia which will receive its first performance.

The Orchestra will also continue its periodic exploration of the music of Scottish-based Sally Beamish in a performance of her recent Under the Wing of the Rock for alto saxophone and strings. The instrument perhaps most closely associated with jazz will on this occasion be played by saxophonist, composer, arranger and jazz educator extraordinaire, Richard Ingham. He will also supply the one jazz element otherwise missing from this concert – improvisation – by arranging and directing George Shearing’s Lullaby of Birdland, with improvised solos both from Richard and members of the Orchestra. The remainder of the concert will be directed by the Orchestra’s principal conductor, Peter Evans.

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George Shearing plays Lullaby of Birdland