Phoenix Saxophone Orchestra celebrates 5 years

This versatile and ambitious orchestra has gone from strength to strength since launching in January 2020. They’ve been nominated for a national award, have recorded a Christmas charity single and have clocked up 39 live performances, which is quite something when you consider they couldn’t perform live for their first 18 months due to the Covid lockdown! But they didn’t waste that time, the orchestra got together online to rehearse and also made four socially distanced recordings - one of which, a joint piece with Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra (ASO), was later nominated for a national Royal Philharmonic Society innovation award.

But for musicians, there’s nothing quite like playing live, and the orchestra made their debut live performance in September 2021 in Harborough Town Square, as part of Big Green Week. They’ve since become well established on the summer bandstand circuit, performing regularly in Kettering, Melton Mowbray and Abington Park, Northampton, as well as some more distant venues such as Southwell Minster and Newark Castle. In June 2023, they made the 960 mile round trip to perform two concerts with ASO and, last November, raised their musical game to new heights when they performed the intricate Matthew Orlovich piece ‘Concertino’ with their Patron, Gerard McChrystal. They’ve also had a piece of music, ‘Journey Home’ written especially for them by saxophonist Mick Foster.

Phoenix Saxophone Orchestra Chair, Stephen Bashforth, said: “Our aim when we set up the orchestra was to provide a vehicle through which we could learn and enjoy playing sax with others, and to demonstrate the range of musical genres that a family of saxophones can master. We currently have 16 members playing seven different types of sax, and our audiences have been genuinely amazed at the sound we can produce. Feedback has been fantastic, with lots of repeat bookings, and we’d like to thank everyone who’s invited us to play and come along to see us perform. We’d also like to thank our Patron Gerard McChrystal, our sponsors Saxtet Publications and Wiseman Cases, and all the musicians who’ve joined us on this journey so far. Without their support, the last five marvellous years would not have been possible. We now all look forward with confidence to many more years of music making.”

2025 is set to be another busy year for Phoenix, with several concerts already in the diary, including a tour to the Isle of Wight in June, where they’ll be performing with Wight Sax, and a joint concert with Saxophone Orchestra Manchester in Macclesfield on 27 September.

They're hosting an open sax workshop with Alistair Penman on Sunday 2 March, and on Sunday 11 May will be performing under the Old Grammar School in Harborough town centre from 1.30-2.30pm to raise money for the town's Jubilee Foodbank, as part of Creative Harborough’s busking programme.

Phoenix is pleased to have helped raise more than £4,000 for charities and good causes since their launch. This money has been raised through fundraising concerts and their 2020 Christmas charity single, that raised £830 for local charity VASL (Voluntary Action South Leicestershire).

If you’d like to know more about Phoenix Saxophone Orchestra and upcoming events, visit their website at phoenixsax.org.uk.