NOBUYA SUGAWA: SAXOPHONE CONCERTOS

Nobuya Sugawa is one of the most distinguished wind instrumentalists in Japan. He is joined here by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Yutaka Sado to perform works by Yoshimatsu and Honda, both of which are dedicated to him. He also plays works by Ibert and Larsson, firmly established in the saxophone’s concert repertoire. Sugawa appears frequently in Japan and throughout the world and over the years has won many prizes and awards. The composer Toshiyuki Honda writes, ‘Nobuya Sugawa, a saxophone player like me and a friend whom I respect very much, entrusted me with the task of writing a concerto for him, a concerto that would represent a tribute to jazz. People tend to associate jazz with ad lib and rhythm and blues, but he took a slightly different direction…’.