Meditative beauty and blazing brilliance: SCO Conductor Emeritus Joseph Swensen returns for a concert of high contrasts and spiritual explorations.

Cumbrian saxophonist Jess Gillam – 2016 BBC Young Musician finalist and much-loved BBC Radio 3 regular – brings her big musical personality to the sumptuous saxophone concerto The Green Ray by British composer Gavin Bryars. Inspired by a Jules Verne novel set in the west of Scotland, it depicts a mysterious light emitted at the moment of sunset – and the magical transformations it can provoke – in music of radiant richness.

To begin, Swensen invites you to immerse yourself in the spiritual reflection of Arvo Pärt’s deeply moving Cantus. And from its opening sounds – no doubt intended to shock Viennese audiences at its 1800 premiere – Beethoven sets out his stall as a fearless musical explorer in his brilliantly witty and energetic First Symphony.

Filmed at Perth Concert Hall, this concert will be broadcast via SCO’s YouTube and Facebook channels.

This concert is available to watch online for a month after the concert premiere. Watch our previously broadcast digital concerts on demand here!