Wolsey Orchestra 2004/5 Season

The Wolsey Orchestra is proud to announce what will prove to be one of our most challenging and rewarding seasons of music since the orchestra’s inception in 1972. All the works bar one that we shall be performing over the three concerts of our 2004 - 2005 season were written in the twentieth century, and many of them can be regared as ground-breaking, either in the context of the overall orchestral repertoire, or on a more personal basis for the composer of the work in question.

For our first concert of the season we have great pleasure in welcoming Steve Bell to conduct the Wolsey Orchestra for the first time. The largest work in this concert will be Shostakovich’s much misundertood Symphony Number Twelve. Written to a commission by the Soviet Communist party, it was not until the era of Glasnost was this work’s true merit recognised. To compliment this masterpiece of programmatic deception, we will also be performing the work that defined the musical term ‘Tone Poem’, Richard Strauss’ Don Juan. The programme will be rounded off with a performance of Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite.

Our second concert of the season sees the welcome return of internationally renowned director, Anthony Halstead. Those of you who attended our February 2004 concert will realise how much the orchestra enjoy following the direction of a musician of Anthony’s stature, and that his unique insight into the orchestral repertoire leads to a memorable performance. Under Anthony’s tutelage, we will be performing Stravinsky’s seminal ballet score, The Rite of Spring, together with Mahler’s Kindertoten Lieder and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite.

Our final concert of the season sees the welcome return of a conductor who is rapidly becoming one of the Wolsey Orchestra’s favourites; Harry Curtis. This is the third year in a row that we have been privileged to work with Harry, and in this concert he combines forces with the Saxophonist Rob Buckland, to perform the concerto by Russian composer Glazunov. To complement the concerto, we have chosen to perform two more twentieth century works: Bernstein’s Dance Suite from West Side Story, and the remarkable Sinfonietta by Janácek.

I am sure that you will agree that the 2004-2005 season of concerts is one of the most exciting that the orchestra has undertaken. We hope that you will be able to come to at least one, if not all three of our concerts this season.