Alive and Kicking, 21st October 2006

Perhaps it's not in the best tradition of objective reporting for players to assess their own performance, but there's a strong consensus within the choir that the "Alive and kicking" concert at St John's, Smith Square on October 21st was one of the choir's best, if not the best, gig yet.

It wasn't just the appreciative audience or magnificently resonant acoustic, or even the really rather special quality of playing (no point in false modesty if we're reviewing ourselves), but the fact that so many of the choir's objectives came together for its London debut:

Firstly, the "Alive and kicking" concept – a celebration of music by living composers – proved just how effective the NSC's policy of encouraging new writing has been in a relatively short time. Almost all the programme was originally conceived for the sax, much of it was written specifically for the choir, and almost half was played in the presence of the composer (Nigel Wood's Where Spirits and Demons Dance, Orphanata and Under the Veil, Keiron Anderson's Harlequin Dances, Roger May's prize-winning Introduction & Riffs and Ben Palmer's Chimes). It was the second time Ben had heard the choir play his work and was "delighted" with the performance, which he considered the choir delivered "brilliantly". Perhaps even more encouraging was his view that the choir had made a "massive improvement" since he last heard it, and that "...the unity of phrasing, attack and balance was really stunning."

Secondly, the gig exemplified the "enterprise" and "excellence" strap lines with which the choir promotes itself: soprano player Debbie Sargent, a recent graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, instigated and organized the entire concert (with back-up from the NSC "team" – *see below) and was also a very poised and charismatic soloist in Under the Veil, joining an illustrious list of previous Veil soloists which includes John Harle, Gerard MacChrystal, Gilad Atzmon and Arno Bornkamp.

Co-operative music-making, another core quality that the choir fosters and relies on, was also reflected in several ways: Simon Stewart (another Veil soloist and soprano player in the Paragon Saxophone Quartet) included the concert as the closing event of his pioneering London Saxophone Festival, and in terms of players, Simon Bull and his mighty contrabass once again made the daunting journey from Germany to add his inimitable timbres to the NSC sound. Within the choir too, organizational teamwork is becoming an impressive phenomenon in its own right: in addition to Nigel's and Keiron Anderson's musical lead as conductors and the *committee and helpers who supported Debbie at the planning stage, every single member of the choir is now allocated a role in concert or stage management so that the choir is professionally presented and promoted on the night.

Finally, the concert included two trademark features which over the season have established themselves as essential items in the NSC gig "package": there is Keiron's introduction to the individual members of the sax family which appears to be universally appreciated and enjoyed by all audiences, and there is the other sure-fire highlight, Nigel's soprillo solo, this time a bravura performance of Philip Buttall's gloriously sentimental and lyrical Eclogue.

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