Equinox Saxophone Ensemble Performance

Website(s) : http://www.equinoxsax.org.uk/

Biography

The Equinox sound is unique and compelling. Great emphasis is placed on presentation and making programmes accessible and enjoyable for a wide audience. Performances include music for the whole saxophone family, for featured soloists, and for smaller combinations such as sax quartet and sax and piano duo. From transcriptions of classical favourites, through the jazz heritage of the saxophone, to modern classics and original, contemporary works for saxophone ensemble, Equinox treats its audiences to a variety of music that showcases the saxophone’s special qualities.

Directed by Alistair Parnell, Equinox is based in Nottingham, UK.The group appeared at the 2012 World Saxophone Congress in St Andrews, and has recorded two albums: ‘Partial Eclipse’ and ‘The Equinox Collection’.

More information

Equinox’s project proposal for SaxOpen 2015 is ‘Four Pictures from New York’ by the contemporary Italian composer Roberto Molinelli.

Molinelli describes this work as “four images of the most famous and most universal metropolis of the world…inspired by the Big Apple, as it seems to the eyes of a European in love with America and its music and culture”.

Originally written as a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, the piece was arranged for saxophone ensemble by the composer. Each of the four movements features a soloist, and Equinox’s performance showcases Nicola Pennill (soprano), Sarah Markham (alto), Chris Jolly (tenor) and Alistair Parnell (alto) in the solo roles.

In the first movement, ‘Dreamy Dawn’, Molinelli describes “the sunrise in a radiant dawn, limpid and serene but modern at the same time: the day breaks with a background of the skyscrapers of Manhattan in an enchanting spectacle”.

‘Tango Club’ is “dedicated to the grand Master of Tango Astor Piazzolla, New Yorker by adoption, written in the style of Argentinian Tango… and imagined in one of the many metropolitan clubs where they play and dance to Latin-American Music”.

In ‘Sentimental Evening’, a jazz ballad, the ensemble mimics a jazz trio to accompany the saxophone soloist.

The last movement, ‘Broadway Night’, represents “the exciting night life that enlivens the scintillating streets of Manhattan, the giant and multicoloured luminous flashing lights that make Time Square a spectacle of lights and colours, and where outside the famous Broadway Theatres you live and breathe a musical atmosphere”.

[Source of programme notes: http://www.robertomolinelli.it/]