Voices and Saxophones

St Paul's Knightsbridge
32a Wilton Place, London SW1X 8SH
United Kingdom

BBC Singers
Raschèr Saxophone Quartet
James Morgan conductor

As unusual a musical collaboration as you're likely to hear, this concert brings together the expert choral forces of the BBC Singers with the instrumental ones of the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. Founded in 1969 by one of the modern pioneers of the instrument, Sigurd Raschèr, the quartet are renowned for their virtuosity - and a German critic has written "If there were an Olympic discipline for wind playing, the Raschèr Quartet would definitely receive a gold medal."

In tonight's wide-ranging programme they give, with the BBC Singers, the British premieres of three of the many pieces they have commissioned from living composers. The Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür sets a Latin prayer by St Anselm of Canterbury, Giya Kancheli has based his piece on a variety of sacred texts from his native Georgia, while Belfast composer Ian Wilson sets words by the Austrian Expressionist poet and artist Oscar Kokoschka.

Alongside these pieces, the BBC Singers perform two fascinating works for unaccompanied voices by Per Norgard and Knut Nystedt, while the Raschèr Quartet demonstrate that four saxophones are just as well suited to the music of the Baroque as to contemporary scores.

Erkki-Sven Tüür : Meditatio
Per Nørgård : Wie ein Kind
Henry Purcell : Fantasia no 7, Z.738
Ian Wilson : Little Red Fish
Knut Nystedt : Immortal Bach
J.S. Bach : Contrapunctus IV from The Art of Fugue
Giya Kancheli : Amao omi