Joint winner of the 2025 University of Cambridge Concerto Competition Jack Marley joins forces with the Cambridge University Orchestra for a performance of Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu’s Saxophone Concerto. The piece was written in 1994 for virtuoso Japanese classical saxophonist Nobuya Sugawa. The composer entitled the work Cyber Bird, explaining that the piece depicts “an imaginary bird in the realm of electronic cyberspace.” 

Though the solo saxophone takes centre stage, the piece might be more accurately described as a triple concerto, featuring prominent parts for solo piano and percussion. In doing so, Yoshimatsu puts a classic jazz trio combination in front of the orchestra and throughout the work plays with the different combinations ofchamber and orchestral textures made available by this unique arrangement. 

The concerto is paired with Jean Sibelius’ imposing Second Symphony. The work shows off Sibelius’ unique mastery of orchestral timbres, such as the pulse string texture with which it begins, and the prominent use of the magisterial sound of the French horn throughout. The symphony also displays the composer’s trademark melodicism. It culminates in the fourth movement with the unfurling of an immense and soaring string melody over a broad wind accompaniment, one of the grandest moments in the orchestral repertoire.