2025
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Saxophone Concerto
Adolphus Hailstork
“This Project Encore Vol. 1 album is packed with inventive and outstandingly crisp tracks that feel lush and full-bodied, and the players both put their heart and passion into the performances each and every time…it’s all quite breathtaking and on point all the time.”
[Review: “Adams’ Concerto Saxophone Concerto gets astonishing performance”]
“John Adams’ Saxophone Concerto demonstrated that the instrument most often associated with jazz, blues and soul is perfectly capable of taking center stage on an orchestral program. Composed in 2013 for saxophonist Timothy McAllister, who premiered it last year with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and who served as Saturday’s excellent soloist, the 30-minute piece was exhilarating…the solo writing is...
“(John) Adams goes for more than stylizations with [City Noir’s] wily jazz spine. Keeping a sweaty, smoky after-hours jam percolating were Timothy McAllister’s volcanic sax…”
“a highly engaging venture into the spirit of the riff, so to speak, without ever explicitly acknowledging the roots of that spirit in Bird’s solos…This recording is particularly satisfying, not only for the facility with which McAllister jumps through all of the hoops that Adams has created but also for the informed rhetorical context that Robertson establishes as conductor.”
“expertly written for the brilliant Timothy McAllister, and the music has the infectious, irresistible energy [Adams] generates so convincingly…”
“Timothy McAllister flew through complicated passagework, produced high notes of arresting intensity and intoned lyrical lines with soul and playfulness”
“the main attraction of this enjoyable St. Louis Symphony album, conducted by David Robertson, is Adams’ Saxophone Concerto, composed for the virtuosic Timothy McAllister, who plays it here. Stacked with swing-era allusions, moody 4am interludes and cartwheeling acrobatics, it is unpretentious fun from start to finish”