The Hallé in Kendal – Scheherazade

The evening

Let your imagination carry you away with meditative music and compelling storytelling.

Reich’s brightly pulsing Proverb considers an idea from the philosopher Wittgenstein: ‘how small a thought it takes to fill a whole life.’

Anna Clyne – the most performed living female composer – has arranged the piece for orchestra, transforming voices into woodwind and electric organs to muted brass to celebrate Reich’s 90th birthday.

Classical BRIT award–winning artist Jess Gillam makes a welcome return to her home county to perform a work she has long championed. Her interpretation of Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto, written as one single movement, reflects the work’s mellow tones and its fiery energy.

Inspired by the centuries-old fairytale collection The Thousand and One Nights, when a murderous sultan marries clever Scheherazade, she delays her execution with nightly storytelling and cliff-hanger endings.

Here, dynamic British conductor Tess Jackson conducts Rimsky-Korsakov’s fascinating melodies.