We played our 40th Anniversary concert to a full St Mary’s Church on 23 Sep. The special occasion was conducted by Joe Davies, who arranged Tallis’ Spem in Alium for 40 parts, with the orchestra in 8 locations around the church: a true surround-sound experience! This was followed by Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for strings, Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind (soloist David Palmer) and Dvorak’s Symphony No 6.
Lionel Sainsbury (pianist and composer) was in the audience and said:
“What a mega-concert – it felt a bit like a proms programme with the feeling of an ‘extra’ item! I thought the Dvorak came off extremely well and enjoyed the fulsome contribution from the woodwind department! I also thought the string sound in the Elgar was exceptional. The Tallis was a novel experiment and also quite a visual spectacle, but I did feel that maybe the strings got rather submerged. The conductor was great, excellent technique, in full command and very good at talking to the audience.”