Event is Live
Carnegie Hall Presents

Jess Gillam, Saxophone
Thomas Weaver, Piano

Tuesday, October 18, 2022 7:30 PM Weill Recital Hall
Jess Gillam, Thomas Weaver by Stratton McCrady
“Saxophone sensation” (BBC Music Magazine) Jess Gillam makes her Carnegie Hall debut. This distinctive program showcases an enormous range of music both written and thoughtfully transcribed for the saxophone, including works by composers such as Meredith Monk, Piazzolla, Poulenc, and Telemann, as well as modern saxophone greats like Barbara Thompson and Gillam’s acclaimed mentor, John Harle, whose astonishing RANT! was commissioned for Gillam. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see a recent star soloist from BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall’s most intimate performance space.

Performers

Jess Gillam, Saxophone
Thomas Weaver, Piano

Program

MEREDITH MONK Early Morning Melody (transcr. Simon Parkin)

PHILIP GLASS Melody for Saxophone No. 10

LUKE HOWARD Dappled Light

POULENC Oboe Sonata

BARBARA THOMPSON The Unseen Way

TELEMANN Bassoon Sonata in F Minor (arr. Simon Parkin)

AYANNA WITTER-JOHNSON Lumina

JOHN HARLE RANT!

DOWLAND "Flow, my tears, fall from your springs" (arr. David Warin Solomons)

WEILL "Je ne t'aime pas" (arr. Paul Campbell)

PIAZZOLLA Selections from Histoire du Tango (arr. Simon Parkin)
·· "Bordel 1900"
·· "Café 1930"
·· "Night Club 1960"


Encore:

PEDRO ITURRALDE Pequeña Czarda

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately 90 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission. 

Listen to Selected Works

Distinctive Debuts is supported by endowment gifts from The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

At a Glance

Like most of the composers represented on tonight’s program, saxophonist Jess Gillam is at home in a wide range of styles and idioms. From Georg Philipp Telemann’s early 18th-century Bassoon Sonata to Kurt Weill’s bittersweet cabaret song “Je ne t’aime pas” of 1934 and Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s freshly minted Lumina, each of the 11 selections highlights a distinct synthesis of elements drawn from classical, jazz, and popular music traditions. Several of the works Gillam has chosen are forward-looking and cutting-edge, but Francis Poulenc’s 1963 Oboe Sonata memorializes a musical tradition that was fast changing beyond recognition, while Astor Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango traces the evolution of Argentina’s national dance from its humble origins in Buenos Aires to an increasingly global and cosmopolitan phenomenon.

Bios

Jess Gillam

Hailing from Ulverston in Cumbria, England, Jess Gillam is animating the music world with her outstanding talent and infectious personality. She has been forging her own adventurous path ...

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Thomas Weaver

Thomas Weaver is an American composer and pianist currently on faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and Boston University Tanglewood Institute. His active solo and chamber career has ...

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