This Classical Life - Live

Jess Gillam takes her ARIA award-winning show This Classical Life to the concert hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra, conductor Hugh Brunt and special guests including composer Ollie Howell; soprano Soraya Mafi; singer Orlando Weeks (former frontman of The Maccabees) and songwriter, vocalist and cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson for an exciting evening at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.

Jess and her guests explore their musical influences, sharing and performing an eclectic range of music they love, including Caroline Shaw’s time-bending Entr’acte, George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, Arvo Part’s haunting Cantus in Memorium Benjamin Britten and Anna Meredith’s ebullient Bubble Gun. Soraya Mafi sings Gounod ‘Je veux vivre’ from Romeo et Juliette and Bernstein’s ‘Glitter and be Gay’ from Candide plus we get to hear the joyous overture. Ollie Howell introduces us to his work Something to Lose along and Quincy Jones’ The Separation, Orlando Weeks performs glittering electronic songs from his second solo album and Ayanna Witter-Johnson shares her arrangement of Erroll Garner’s classic ‘Misty’, and all this is topped off with the glorious finale of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

Darius Milhaud: Braziliera from Scaramouche
George Walker: Lyric for Strings
Charles Gounod: Je veux vivre from Romeo et Juliette
Leonard Bernstein: Candide Overture / Glitter and be Gay
Arvo Part: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Anna Meredith arr. Jack Ross: Bubble Gun
Ollie Howell: Something to Lose
Quincy Jones arr. Jules Buckley: The Separation
Orlando Weeks arr. Amy Langley: Big Skies Silly Faces
Orlando Weeks arr. Amy Langley: Deep Down Way Out
Caroline Shaw: Entr’acte
Ayanna Witter-Johnson arr. Katie Chatburn: These Four Walls
Erroll Garner arr. Witter-Johnson/Chatburn: Misty
Igor Stravinsky: Firebird Suite 1919 (excerpt)

Jess Gillam (presenter, saxophone)
Soraya Mafi (soprano)
Orlando Weeks (vocals, electronics)
Ayanna Witter-Johnson (vocals, cello)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Hugh Brunt (conductor)

Recorded on the 7th July 2021, at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre