Saxophone prodigy Jess Gillam's story is a litany of firsts: she was the first saxophonist to reach the final of BBC Young Musician of the Year; the youngest-ever female performer at the Last Night of the Proms; the first saxophonist to sign to Decca Classics; and her first album, Rise, debuted at number one on the U.K. classical chart, when she was just 20 years old.
Born on May 24, 1998, Gillam was brought up in a music-loving family in the picturesque market town of Ulverston in Cumbria, in England's Lake District. Her family ran a tearoom, where she sometimes waitressed a...