FIRST REVIEW OF A CONCERT FOR "AUDITION COMMENTEE"

SAXOFOONENSEMBLE KCB

Bart Boukaert, dirigent

Simon Diricq, solo

17.05.2018

PROGRAMME:

- Matthew Lima, "We are still burning"

- Fans Geysen, "In het teken van de vertikale gloed"

-Thierry Escaich,"Le chant des tenebres"

- Thierry de Mey,"Palindromes"

The concert was completely focused on contemporary music for saxophone ( he programme
was made up of some original works for saxophone and some transcriptions from string
repertoire).

In general, in almost all pieces we could find all the different sizes of saxophone from soprano
saxophone to the bass saxophone.

The ensemble of saxophone was very balanced about the sound and the tone of this wonderful
instrument but it was also very balanced about the dynamics and the different colours written
in all the pieces.

Especially in the second and in the last piece all the young musicians showed a great
interaction capacity between all each other because they are really really two difficult pieces
because of the rythme.

In the third piece called "Le chant des tenebres" the solist Simon Diricq showed again another
time his musical flexibility owned by really few musicians and saxophonists in the international
level.

Next to a great technique he showed a wonderful and uncommon sound ( really bright in the
high register of the saxophone and at the same time really dark and gloomy in the lower
register).

In general, even if the programme was very strange, thanks to the greatness of the director, of
the solist and also of all the other saxophonists, the concert was appreciated by most listeners.
4
 SECOND REVIEW

Brussels philharmonic orchestra

David Navarro Turres, conductor

Daniel Blumental, piano

26.05.2018

PROGRAMME:

- Grieg, Piano concerto

- Dvorak, Symphony no.8

Like showed in the programme the concert was divided in two parts.

In the first part the concert was completely dominated by the greatnes of the piano
solist Daniel Blumenthal who showed his grat musical capacity even if he is not so
young like before.

Probably for his amazing technique on the piano and his great musicality we felt a little
gap between the solist and the orchestra that was made up of a lot of music studends
an musicians whose middle age was from 20 to 30 years old.

Despite of this the musical intention that they wanted to search with this piece, in my
opinion, could be found perfectly.

In the second part of the concert we listened to one of the most beautiful symphonies
written by Dvorak ( his eighth symphony ).

It is composed by three movements ( vif-lent-vif ) and it was played by the orchestra

in a such perfect way.

In my opinion the second movement, even if with some problems of intonation

because of the grat hot in the concert hall, was played wonderfully with a lot of passion
and feelings.
 THIRD REVIEW

KLASSIK4SAX - Festival courant d’airs

Victor Pellicer, sax soprano

Valentin Bouland, sax alto

Nicola Peretto, sax tenore

Maayan James, sax bariton

PROGRAMME:

- Rameau, Overture de Zais

- Piernè, Introduction et variation sur une ronde populaire

- Chostakovich, Quatuor a cordes no.8

- Debussy, La fille aux cheveux de lin

- Maayan James, El giza

The saxophone quartet, made up of four of the best saxophone students in CrB and
KcB conservatory of Bruxelles, showed a great musical flexibility playing in its repertoire
such different music from french music really light and graceful to a composer like
Chostakovich who is really really a deep, dark and mysterious composer like a lot of
russian composers between 1800 and 1900.

They finished the concert with a music work really really uncommon written by the
bariton sax player of the quartet Maayan James with arabic and jewish musical themes
( like the origin of this musician ).

About the technique on the saxophone the quartet palyed really really well with a great
unity about the sound and the tymber but also about rythme.

The dynamic possibilities are amazing, from pianissimo ( ppp ) to fortissimo ( fff ) in a
very natural way.
 FOURTH REVIEW

Brussel Philharmonic

Stephane Denove, conductor

Timothy McAllister, solist

PROGRAMME:

- Milaud, La creation du monde

- Guillaume Connesson, Saxophone concerto “A kind of trane”

It was my first concert that I saw with solist saxophone and orchestra; it was an amazing
concert.

In the first part of the concert the orchestra ( with less instruments than in a symphonic
orchestra; it was like a chamber orchestra ) played “La creatin du monde” by Milaud in
which the score of saxophone was played by Asagi Ito who is one of the three
assistents in the saxophone class in the CrB conservatory of Bruxelles.

In the second part instead the american saxophone player Timothy McAllister played,
like first time in belgium, a really new piece written for the world saxophone concress
in Strasbourg in 2013.

It was written by Guillame Connesson and it is inspired to classical music but also to
jazz an popular music.

It is made up of three movements ( sax soprano-sax alto-sax soprano ) and the last
movement is a tribute to John Coltrane and the ”free jazz”.
 FIFTH REVIEW

Je m’appelle Jacques Brel

Brussel Philharmonic

David Navarro Turres, Conductor

For this concert is very difficoult to give a precise programme because it was a
consert with all the popular music of this belgian singer and composers of this
kind of songs during 1950-1960.

It was a great mix between classical music and polular one because the singer (
who embodied the role of Jacques Brel ) was followed by a classic and big
orchestra that played all the pieces transcribed for this formation.

This concert, that was made in the big theatre called Forest national, wasn’t
animated by just music but also thanks to a lot of beautiful games of light and
colours different from a song to another.