The "Saxophone Massive" - or should that be "massive saxophone"?

Tonight I performed with some 100 other saxophonists as part of Andy Sheppard's Saxophone Massive, at Marlborough House. The piece was performed as the opener for ARK's gala charity fundraising dinner and was attended by some 1000 VIPs, celebrities, and basically, people with money. People like Elton John, Liz Hurley, Bob Geldof... it was a pretty big deal. To read some news stories about the event, click here or here.

Despite the weather, it was awesome. Originally I was to be part of the group that would be performing on the roof (no mean feat, this involved climbing up a couple of flights of stairs, then climbing out a window onto some scaffolding on the roof - with saxophone in hand - to stand on a plank (with railings) and play for an hour and a half). Now let me clear up one little point - yes, I did have a saxophone in hand, yes, I normally play the alto, but no, I wasn't playing it this time. No, this time, I brought along the big kahuna, the grand-daddy of all the saxes - the baritone! We recently splurged on a baritone for school and I have, as Head of Department, had the honour of breaking it in. That thing is practically as big as me (ok, slight exaggeration, but it is pretty big, and was a bit of a pain lumping it about London on the tube and the bus to get to rehearsals hehehe...). Anyway, we did go up there and play for a short time, but drizzle turned to showers, which turned to deluge - this is England after all - and we had to go back down.

The performers on the ground had been placed under a marquee and so the roof team were redistributed amongst them. The acutal performance was 1 hour 15 minutes non-stop and featured some of the UK's biggest saxophonists, including the wonderful Denys Baptiste, whose music is simply inspirational.

Anyway, all in all it was absolutely awesome to be performing in such a massive group (and on such a massive saxophone too)... I won't forget it... and the event raised £28 million for the kids too...