When Sax Met Cello: The Love Story Behind an Unexpected Musical Act

What do you get when you marry a saxophone and a cello? The answer is SXNCELLO, the husband/wife artistic team of Ashley James (Snape) and Lily Thornton, known to social media as “that couple who perform together.” From a chance boat party meeting in Melbourne to viral Internet fame and booking international gigs, this dynamic Australian duo has been building a global music brand on their own terms. For Ash and Lily, that means blending classical precision with electronic energy. It also means balancing art, love, and parenthood.

Raising two young children while touring internationally, SXNCELLO balances life and music between hotel room meals, sound checks, and toddlers waiting in the wings. Ash and Lily remain devoted and committed to both sides of their life together: the music and the magic (of parenthood).

Two Rebels With Classical Training

Both Ash and Lily hail from a classically trained background in the UK. Both were musicians from a young age, devoting hours to practice every day, and received classical training in college. Though this background gave them both a rigor and a grounding in music theory, by their twenties, both Ash and Lily were hungry to break away from traditional approaches to music and find their own path. Lily became a popular cellist in London, working in musical theatre, film, and TV recording before moving back to Australia.

Meanwhile, Ash fell in love with electronic music. Those chords appear relatively simple on the surface, but electronic sound can create profound suspense and emotion. A born performer, Ash found himself freestyling on the sax over dance music at clubs and writing catchy 8-bar top lines on the fly, drawing a growing fan base from across the UK and Europe.

A Match Made With Music

Fast forward to 2018. The scene is Melbourne, Australia, where Ash and Lily meet on a boat at a mutual friend’s party. It sounds like the beginning of a “sax and a cello walk into a bar” joke, or maybe a Hollywood rom-com. But what Ash and Lily both recognized immediately was a shared passion for music’s ability to convey emotion through harmonies and tone. Though rarely put together, the saxophone and the cello are both emotive instruments.

In 2019, the young couple sat down together and devised their first duo tracks and harmonies, and SXNCELLO was officially born at their first gig at an internationally recognized beauty pageant. The ocean was no barrier, as Ash had made the move from the UK to Melbourne at the end of 2017, where he was already the town’s most in-demand sax player. The early feedback for SXNCELLO was very positive, and bookings quickly rolled in from across Australia.

Going Global

As it turned out, not only Melbourne but the entire world was hungry for Ash and Lily’s signature blend of sax and cello—the electronic sound people didn’t know they needed until they heard it. One of the duo’s videos went viral on social media, drawing 10 million views worldwide. With their DMs and email filled with contacts, the two artists knew it was time to take SXNCELLO on the road.

Of course, travel has been tricky for a couple with young children in tow. On one recent occasion, SXNCELLO was due to board a flight for an event in Sydney, and their babysitter fell ill at the last moment. That meant adding the children to the itinerary. The children are growing up used to running around backstage, and their musical parents often order room service the night of a show, eating dinner together on the bathroom floor of their hotel room so as not to wake the kids. Ash and Lily take it all in stride; after all, humor, love, and improvisation are at the core of their music.

Recent bookings in Mexico, Tuscany, and Bali, and the impending release of SXNCELLO’s first single are helping Ash and Lily transition from live act to a sonic brand. Enquiries are also coming in from Canada, the United States, and countries in Europe and Asia. This September, they’ll take the sax and cello to Rio, where one of their performances will be held at a private event at the base of Cristo Redentor, that famous 30-metre statue at the peak of Mount Corcovado.

In the years ahead, Ash and Lily hope to play on main stages at music festivals and release more original music. In fact, they plan to release a handful of original songs before the end of the year. If you are interested in hearing their work or finding out where SXNCELLO will fly to next, you can follow their adventures on here and here.

BDG Media newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.