Ooooh, saxy!

What do London and Florence have in common?

 1) They’re both cities in the northern hemisphere.
 2) They have a wealth of culture, art and glorious music under their belts.
 3) Hitting someone on the head with a fish will not make you popular in either. And
 4) they are, together, the subject of Oriana’s next concert.

 It’s to be a celebration of these two marvellous cities, a programme in no way contrived to shamelessly curry audience favour when we go on tour to Florence at the beginning of June.

 On the setlist we have a couple of Oriana repertoire stalwarts – Leonardo Dreams by Whitacre and the fabulous Madrigali by Lauridsen – hurray! And then a welter of new music, all modern, all a bit complicated, and some of it saxophone-based. Which is lucky, because otherwise John Harle would only get to stand at the front and look pretty when he joins us on stage at the next concert.

 I’ve only seen John Harle once before, when I turned up on a whim at a little-advertised concert in the wilds of Leicestershire to find him tootling a few tunes, accompanied unexpectedly on the piano by Richard Rodney Bennett. So I’m very excited to see him again, when I can fawn upon him in a manner that more befits such a famous saxophonist. And to set myself up for proper John Harle fawning opportunities, I’ve been reading all about him on his website. Did you know he wrote the theme tune for “Silent Witness”? I LOVE that theme tune! I mean, obviously it’s not in the same league as my all time favourite TV theme tune ever - Mr Ben - but it’s not far off.

Other exciting John Harle facts: he is the world’s most recorded saxophonist (says his website). He was a clarinettist in the Band of the Coldstream Guards (Wikipedia, that one). He was born on the same day as Matti Häyry, Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy of Law at the University of Manchester (that was just random googling).

And if all that wasn't versatile enough for you, I found out the following exciting fact from his website: “his activities have taken him from the Last Night of the BBC Proms and the podium of the London Symphony Orchestra to the boardrooms of major international organisations.”

 I was overcome! On top of being the world’s most recorded saxophonist, John Harle also runs some major international organisations! Do his talents know no bounds? I can just see him bouncing into a boardroom, sax in hand, shouting “Buy coffee! Sell dotcom shares! Clean up that oilspill!” Or maybe, just maybe, he never actually says anything, and instead he expresses his orders to his minions through an impromptu saxophone solo.

Well, with this in mind, I’m looking at his “City Solstice” in a whole new light. It masquerades as a piece inspired by the history of London Bridge, but when you look carefully, it actually contains coded messages to all of John Harle’s acolytes in the City of London.

 “Dance over my Lady Lee” - buy property in the Lee River Valley.
 “Gold and silver, pen and ink” - invest in Bic. And
 “Who is there to count the cost? My fair lady” - hire me an attractive new accountant.

 Get your tickets for the concert now, and bring a notebook. You never know what get-rich-quick tips you might pick up.