06/12/2024 RNCM ArkEnsemble with Company Chameleon

Rob Buckland has crafted a career around his primary work as a saxophonist that defies categorisation. Moving effortlessly between genres, performing as classical soloist, chamber musician, contemporary specialist and improviser, with an international reputation as an insightful and forward-thinking educator. Renowned for a highly distinctive, original sound, with real personality and projection, combined with an open-minded approach to repertoire and performance styles, his work takes him around the globe in an astonishing variety of musical settings.

His most enduring and significant musical partnership is with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, which he co-founded in 1985, which has commissioned and premiered well over 100 new works for the medium and recorded eight CDs, all themselves world premiere recordings. The quartet has toured extensively across the UK, Europe, Japan and South Africa. He has released three CDs with his duo partner pianist Peter Lawson, one of which features his Equivox Trio (adding in percussionist Simone Rebello), and numerous albums with artists such as the Michael Nyman Band, London Saxophonic and orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, Halle and RLPO.

Company Chameleon is one of the UK’s leading independent dance companies. Established in Manchester in 2007 by Anthony Missen and Kevin Edward Turner, Chameleon makes dance productions in the city, which they tour and perform around the world.

Packed with possibilities for everyone, their growing programme of classes includes opportunities for professional dancers, young people and adults to enjoy and feel the benefits of dance.

Company Chameleon tours internationally, staging over 50 indoor and outdoor performances every year. The team has grown from a team of two to a team of fourteen and is now based at its own dance studio in Openshaw, Manchester.

To find out more, visit companychameleon.com.

RNCM ArkEnsemble comprises two of each of the main wind instrument families: two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two clarinets, two saxophones, two trumpets, two French horns, two trombones, two percussion, and double bass and conductor.

Engaging and striking presentation is a major part of the group’s performance, with players in individual concert dress, all players standing, and theatrical elements and lighting incorporated into the production. The repertoire draws from an incredibly wide-ranging and open-minded legacy of music for winds and beyond.

To find out more, visit ArkEnsemble’s page.