A cold, dark and murky winter’s evening was lit up by a magical concert at Holy Trinity Church on Monday. The Ferio Saxophone Quartet entertained an enthusiastic audience with superb playing and an imaginative and varied programme of works by composers as diverse as Bach and Bernstein.
The quartet more than lived up to their reputation: “the Ferios certainly have skill on their side, and every emotional hue you could want – smoky, honeyed, shrieking or sad.”
Their performance of Bach variations even enthralled the purists and their West Side Story Suite resulted in clamours that this should be their next recording.
Their last number: The Lone Ar-ranger goes Sax Mad, brought the house down, but they sent us home with an encore which they described as musical Christmas present for us all: Variations for saxophone on Corelli’s Christmas Concerto. We all went away happy.
This was another triumph for Ripon Concerts.