Signum Saxophone Quartet and Kristian Winther

Four saxophonists lock eyes, no sheet music to distract them. They bend their knees with the flow of the music, and lift their fingers to snap with the beat.

These players capture the effortless cool of the Jets from West Side Story. And their arrangement of the Bernstein score is just one work from the Signum Saxophone Quartet’s ripper program.

Signum has achieved cult status on instruments scarcely found in the concert hall. The group champions composers living and lost while filling the world’s best venues.

This tour with Musica Viva Australia is Signum’s Australian debut, so we’re making a big deal of it. We’ve commissioned Sydney composer Jessica Wells to arrange Kurt Weill’s Violin Concerto – originally for violin and wind orchestra, and one of the more technically difficult works in the repertory – for the quartet and soloist, and we’ve secured Kristian Winther for the hero’s role.

With a meeting of top creative minds in a program spanning Bach to Gershwin, this tour will show you that the saxophone is one of the most surprising instruments in the concert hall.