Concert Programme 2008

Mozart - A Life In Letters

Friday 25th July, 7.30pm
Fishguard Festival  Website

ESO Winds

Three Choirs Festival  Website

Tuesday 5th August, 2.15pm
Pershore Abbey  Website

ESO Symphony Orchestra
The Elgar Chorale
Conductor Donald Hunt

This concert features works written by Vaughan Williams for the Festival, in the lovely setting of Pershore Abbey.

• Mystical Songs
• Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus
• Valiant-for-truth
• Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
• Fantasia on Christmas Carols

Tickets: £26, £18, £10
Available from 3choirs.org from April 9th. Festival Box Office opens May 21st 0845 6521823.

A Night at the Opera

Three Counties Showground, Malvern  Website
Saturday 30th August, 7.00pm

ESO Symphony Orchestra
Saint Michael's Singers  Website
Conductor Stephen Roberts
Elizabeth Macdonald (soprano)
John Hudson (Tenor)

Featuring many of the best-loved arias, choruses and orchestral excerpts from the world's greatest operas.

Programme includes:

• Solos & duets from Carmen, La Bohème, Tosca, Don Giovanni and Rigoletto
• Choruses from Carmen, Il Trovatore, Nabucco and Aida
• Overtures to The Marriage of Figaro, Die Meistersinger, the Orchestral Suite from Carmen and the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana

Tickets available from the Three Counties Showground Box Office 01684 584924.

David Watkins

Oundle School  Website

Sunday 28th September, 7.30pm

ESO String Orchestra
David Watkins (harp)

David Watkins returns to his alma mater to play a programme featuring two of his own commissioned pieces. The concert will also feature the school's string musicians playing side-by-side, with an ESO ensemble that features their tutors, Angus Gibbon and Peter Adams.

• Sibelius - Andante Festivo
• Mozart - Divertimento in F
• Debussy - Danses Sacrée et Profane
• Watkins - Concertina Pastoral for flute, clarinet and strings
• Watkins - Concerto for 2 Harps and Strings
• Elgar - Serenade for Strings (with Oundle Strings)
• Holst - St Paul's Suite (with Oundle Strings)

Tickets available from Oundle School - 01832 277122.

Evesham Arts Centre  Website

Friday 17th October, 7.30pm

ESO Chamber Ensemble
in conjunction with the Evesham Music Club
Keith Rubach (bassoon)
with The Bochmann Quartet (Michael Bochmann, Mark Messenger, Helen Roberts, Peter Adams)

• Beethoven - Quartet in A Op.18 No.5
• Krommer - Quartet Op.46 No.1
• Devienne - Quartet in C Op.73 No.1
• Debussy - Quartet in G Minor

Tickets: £13 (Seniors £12, Students £3)
Available from ESO Box Offce 01386 791044.

'Fantasia'

Saturday 18th October, 6.00pm
Gloucester Cathedral  Website

ESO Symphony Orchestra
Gloucester Cathedral Choristers & Youth Choir
Saint Michael's Singers  Website

Vernon Handley, Nicholas Cleobury
Paul Leddington-Wright, Adrian Partington

Michael Bochmann (violin)
Ashley Grote (organ)

Fantasia is the title of an ESO Educational Project which will lead up to this unique concert.

This concert will also involve a vast number of talented young players from across the county, including Gloucester Academy of Music, Gloucestershire Youth Orchestra and Youth Choir, Brookfield Music Centre, the County Junior Choir, Voices of Youth and others.

This concert sees the premiere of Canticum Novum, a specially-commissioned work composed by Stephen Roberts.

• Vaughan Williams:
  • O Clap Your Hands
  • For All the Saints
  • The Lark Ascending
  • Down Ampney
  • Concerto Grosso
  • Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
• Thomas Tallis - Third Mode Melody (the theme)
• Stephen Roberts - Canticum Novum

Fantasia is supported by the Ernest Cook Trust, the Notgrove Trust, the Aspinwall Trust and Mr S Keswick.

Unreserved seating. Tickets: £10 (£2 for students) will be available from Gloucestershire Youth Music and the Gloucester Academy of Music in September.

For more information on the Fantasia project, please click here.

Richard Derrington

The Grand Tour

Sunday 19th October, 7.30pm
Malvern St James  Website

ESO String Orchestra
Narrator Richard Derrington (RSC)
Directed by Michael Bochmann (violin)
with George Ewart (violin), Peter Adams ('cello)
David Ponsford (harpsichord)
Malvern St James choir conducted by Lynne Lindner

Back in the late 1600's, largely thanks to John Locke's essay 'Concerning Human Understanding', the idea of the Grand Tour was born. For the next 200 years privileged young men took the chance to visit the capitals of Europe for 'cultural enlightenment'.

Much of the music they heard is very familiar to us now but the travellers would have been hearing it for the very first time and the impact was often astounding.

In this concert the ESO takes the audience on its own 'Grand Tour' of some of the major works of the period around the end of the 17th Century. Actor Richard Derrington will be the tour guide, and introduce them to the composers and their fellow travellers. The tour will encompass Paris, Leipzig, London, Madrid, Lisbon and of course Venice. A time-travelling coda will steer the audience away from the imperial powers of the past into that of the future.

• Purcell - Chaconne (London)
• Couperin - Pièces en Concerts (Paris)
• Bach - Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor (Leipzig)
• Vivaldi - Gloria (Venice)
• Boccherini - Minuet (Madrid)
• Scarlatti - Harpsichord Sonata (Lisbon)
• Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No.3 (Köthen)
• Copland - Hoedown (New York)

Unreserved seating. Tickets: £20, £15, £10 (ESO Friends 15% discount, students 50% discount).
Available from ESO Box Offce 01386 791044.

Berkeley Castle  Website

Sunday 30th November, 6.00pm

ESO String Orchestra
directed by Michael Bochmann
with Laura Jellicoe (flute), George Ewart (violin)
Helen Roberts (viola)

Charles Berkeley invites you to his ancestral home for the annual Christmas concert drinks in the Long Room at 5pm.

• Vivaldi - Flute Concerto
• Vivaldi - Concerto in A minor for two violins
• Telemann - Viola Concerto
• Bach - Movements from the B minor Suite
• Debussy - Syrinx
• Borodin - Nocturne
• Dvorak - Waltz
• Handel - Pastoral Symphony
• Gluck - Dance of the Blessed Spirits
• Strauss - Pizzicato Polka
• Anderson - The Typewriter
• Charles Berkeley invites you to his ancestral

Tickets: £37.50, including wine and mince pies.
Available from ESO Box Offce 01386 791044.

Handel's Messiah

Friday 19th December, 7.30pm
Coventry Cathedral  Website

ESO Chamber Orchestra
Saint Michael's Singers  Website
Conductor Paul Leddington Wright

The Messiah returns to Coventry after a two-year absence as ESO continue their association with Saint Michael's Singers.

Tickets: £20, £15 (concessions £2 discount).
Available from Coventry Cathedral 02476 267070 or the ESO Box Offce 01386 791044.

Handel's Messiah

Saturday 20th December, 7.30pm
Tewkesbury Abbey  Website

ESO Chamber Orchestra
The Elgar Chorale  Website
Conductor Donald Hunt
Jennifer Walker (soprano), Catherine King (mezzo-soprano)
Wilhelm Theunissen (tenor), Alan Fairs (bass)

A renowned conductor of Handel's masterpiece, Dr Donald Hunt returns to Tewkesbury Abbey with his choir following a triumphant performance in 2007.

Tickets: (Band A) £26, (Band B) £24, (Band C) £18, Band D (£12), (Band E) £6.
(ESO Friends 15% discount, students 50% discount).
Available from ESO Box Office 01386 791044.

Christmas Concert

Tuesday 23rd December, 7.30pm
Number 8, Pershore  Website

ESO String Orchestra
Paul Arden Taylor (oboe)

• Albinoni - Oboe concerto in C Op.9 No.5
• Corelli - Christmas Concerto
• JS Bach - Concerto in D minor for oboe and violin
• Telemann - Concerto in D for four violins alone
• Ennio Morricone - Gabriel's Oboe from The Mission
• Stephen Roberts - An Irish Frolic
• Boccherini - Minuet
• Strauss - Pizzicato Polka
• Leroy Anderson - The Waltzing Cat

To add a seasonal favour, port and mince pies will be available on arrival.

Unreserved seating. Tickets: £18.50.
Available from Number 8 Box Offce 01386 555488