Jess Gillam: My Musical Journey

It’s a real honour to be an AYM Patron – they’re such a brilliant charity.

Support doesn’t always have to be only financial. For Jess Gillam, the first saxophonist to reach the BBC Young Musician concerto final and AYM’s youngest Patron, the help and assistance she received from the charity was a lot more about progression than pounds sterling. “AYM are about so much more than financial support” says Jess, citing annual Awards Days as one example, where young musicians come together with professional musicians and meet other young people, sharing their experiences and learning from each other. The performance opportunities, concert tickets and regular updates AYM have given her have been great too Jess says. “It’s a real honour to be an AYM Patron – they’re such a brilliant charity. It’s really important that every child has the chance to experience music: it’s such a part of who we are as humans.”

Alongside her role with AYM, Jess now performs internationally alongside a busy schedule of recording and studying. She’s passionate about the broader benefits of a musical education. “Music is one of the strongest ways of communicating, it helps you to empathise, to question things, to think about the abstract. There are so many human skills that music teaches us other than just being able to play the instrument.”

Part of our 20th anniversary project: My Musical Journey