Saxophone quartet to take viewers on “extraordinary adventure” with Journey to the Impossible premiere
Groundbreaking ensemble the Apollo Saxophone Quartet is to premiere Journey to the Impossible, its unique set mixing music with “crazy and wonderful” films from the early years of the silent movie era.
Established in 1985 at the Royal Northern College of Music, the ensemble has made the largest single contribution to the saxophone quartet repertoire in the UK, commissioning and premiering over 100 works.
Journey to the Impossible, originally commissioned in 1998 by the Phoenix Arts Theatre in Leicester and one of the quartet’s most popular works, is now set to be streamed online for the first time via stream.theatre.
The hour-long performance will premiere on Monday May 31, with nightly streams scheduled until June 6, and will then be available via VOD from June 7-13.
Past and present members of the Apollo Saxophone Quartet have composed elements of the quirky Journey Across the Impossible score, which has been set to an imaginative and often hilarious series of black and white films that date back to the early 1900s.
The ensemble sourced the films during a day at the British Film Institute in London, trawling through old filing cabinets and cupboards to uncover a mesmerising collection of short films, some of which had been untouched for years.
Rob Buckland, one of the original co-founders of the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, said the films will take viewers on an “extraordinary adventure”.
He said: “They feature some of the really early techniques that were being used in silent film and include some of the great luminaries of the time like Georges Méliès, who took the medium of film and pushed it into areas that it was never meant to go.
“If you join us on this Journey Across the Impossible you will travel to the moon, meet dancing pigs and acrobatic flies and all sorts of other crazy and wonderful things.”
A regular international touring ensemble, the Apollo Saxophone Quartet has featured in live broadcasts on Classic FM and BBC radio and has released seven albums to date, as well as appearing on recordings by the likes of Michael Nyman, Michael Torke and Django Bates.
Direct link to stream: https://www.stream.theatre/season/136
Link to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMZY5nDaRnI_ZAR7WUB5lKw/videos
Apollo Saxophone Quartet website: https://www.apollosaxophonequartet.com/
Imagery: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/749kzxhxmxnw1qo/AACJGvi-Y4XMB8ndQhF6LS-ka?dl=0
Media contact
Rachel Whibley
Published on PRFIRE