Kensington Symphony Orchestra
Encyclopedia
Founded in 1956, London's Kensington Symphony Orchestra is one of the best known non-professional orchestras in Britain. It regularly attracts the best non-professional players from around London for its concerts at St John's, Smith Square and other venues in London. Like many British amateur orchestras it finances its concerts not only through ticket sales, charitable dontations and corporate support, but through its playing members who pay subscription fees.
who has been with the orchestra since 1983.
and across the road from the Royal College of Music
in Kensington. Head’s original concept was that this would be a repertoire orchestra, one that provided conservatoire students with the opportunity to read through pieces they might not otherwise set eyes on before professional auditions. "When I was a student we had three hours of orchestra a week, the same amount that the college were doing in 1850—and look what had happened to music in those 100 years!" That first Saturday-morning session in May 1956 was spent tackling works including Brahms
’s First Symphony and Strauss
’s Till Eulenspiegel, with some Schumann
thrown in.
It wasn’t long before the students decided they wanted to give a concert. A début programme was scheduled for 5 December 1956; but KSO’s first appearance actually came a couple of weeks earlier, when Head was asked to put on a last-minute performance at Hove Town Hall in support of the Hungarian Relief Fund. The clarinet section for that first concert comprised Alan Hacker
and Paul Harvey—both familiar names to today’s clarinettists—and a young Royal Artillery bandsman called Harrison Birtwistle
. In honour of the Hungarian cause, the programme included Bartók
’s Piano Concerto No. 3, written only ten years earlier. Even in that first concert, KSO’s predilection for the new, the unfamiliar and the downright difficult—what one of Head’s players would come to refer to as ‘backs-to-the-wall-again’ music—was shaping itself.
Powered by Head’s hard work, and with its few expenses met by a postwar Labour government keen to support anything that might fall under the remit of further education, KSO flourished. Fundamentally, Head still saw it as a repertoire orchestra, something that was to continue for two decades and more. A typical schedule from 1978 has the orchestra rehearsing Brahms
and Bartók
one week, Bliss
and Strauss
the next, Elgar
the week after. Yet the concerts continued, and grew more and more ambitious. Prokofiev
’s Alexander Nevsky received an early UK performance from KSO at the 1963 St Pancras Festival
; several now-standard works including Bernstein
’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Mahler
’s Das Klagende Lied and Puccini
’s Messa di Gloria were introduced to UK audiences by KSO. As the orchestra for Opera Viva, another of Head’s brainchildren, KSO (in all but name—the sponsoring Fulham council insisted they dropped the "Kensington") performed in well-received exhumations of early Wagner, Verdi and Donizetti operas with distinguished singers including Pauline Tinsley and the young John Tomlinson
.
Yet the boldest venture was perhaps KSO’s 1961 UK premiere of the vast, original 1901 version of Schoenberg
’s Gurrelieder. The huge forces this required (eight of each woodwind instrument, for a start) put it way beyond the capacity and budget of most groups employing professionals. This, Head thought, was exactly where KSO should be coming in. Not everyone agreed. "I wrote to the Arts Council
to ask for an extra £100," he remembers. “And they answered saying that I shouldn’t even be attempting a work like this, and that they had told the National Association of Music Societies not to give us anything either.” The performance went ahead regardless, and was a huge success.
, Bax
, Stanford
and Wilfrid Josephs in the Queen Elizabeth Hall
. This marked KSO’s South Bank début. “It was,” says Keable, “also a milestone in terms of performance quality.” At around this time the orchestra began to give concerts in St John's, Smith Square. “It was a really happy orchestra, and that was absolutely key in its development. If an orchestra is happy socialising it will play better,” said Keable.
Today, St John’s is effectively KSO’s performing home. Most of its six concerts each year are given there, with occasional visits to the Cadogan Hall
or the Queen Elizabeth Hall
. The line-up varies very slightly from concert to concert, but the orchestra inspires considerable commitment. The four woodwind principals have around 75 years of service between them. Many are National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain alumni, people who chose not to turn professional as players, and many are employed in the music industry in other capacities.
In 1996, Korngold
’s opera, Die tote Stadt
, received its UK premiere, a concert performance by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Russell Keable at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with Ian Caley (Paul) and Christine Teare (Marie/Marietta), thirteen years before the first UK staged performance at the Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden. Head’s longstanding tradition of programming unusual or neglected works by British composers has been maintained—perhaps most obviously in the premiere recording of Sir Henry Walford-Davies’ once-famous cantata Everyman
, made with the London Oriana Choir in 2004. That recording was Gramophone Magazine's Editor’s Choice in February 2005. Also in 2004, the orchestra together with the BBC Concert Orchestra
premiered Errollyn Wallen
’s Spirit Symphony – Speed-Dating for Two Orchestras, conducted by Russell Keable
and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. That performance won the BBC 3 Listeners’ Award in 2005. That year, the orchestra celebrated its 50th anniversary by performing at the Barbican Centre
with pianist Nikolai Demidenko
. And in 2007, at Cadogan Hall
, the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, once again under Russell Keable
's baton, accompanied Myleene Klass
, Alfie Boe
, Natasha Marsh
and Natalie Clein
for EMI Classics
, in a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of the EMI Music Sound Foundation.
The orchestra is more involved than ever in promoting new compositions. In 2004 KSO commissioned and premiered Hovercraft by Joby Talbot
, which he then incorporated into the ballet Chroma by the Royal Ballet in 2007. Works by John Woolrich
, Peter Maxwell Davies
, Robin Holloway
and both Colin
and David Matthews
have also featured in recent years, often in their London or UK premières. For composers, the chance to have their work rehearsed at proper length and performed with enthusiasm can be a welcome change from the professional norm. For the players, breaking new ground brings greater risks but commensurate rewards. "An amateur orchestra can be simply there for the indulgence of its members, or it can try to do things that professional orchestras either can’t or don’t want to," says Keable. "It can try to make a difference."
2. http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_features.php?id=3782
History
KSO has only had two principal conductors — its founder, Leslie Head, and the current conductor, Russell KeableRussell Keable
Russell Keable is a British educator, composer and conductor. Keable studied conducting at the Royal College of Music with Norman Del Mar and later with George Hurst...
who has been with the orchestra since 1983.
Under Leslie Head
"All the main orchestras in those days were doing very boring programmes, really, rarely anything unusual—and in a way I think we helped to change that" said Leslie Head. He was a 33-year-old freelance horn player and part-time conductor when he first assembled Kensington Symphony Orchestra at Queen Alexandra House, next door to the Royal Albert HallRoyal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
and across the road from the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
in Kensington. Head’s original concept was that this would be a repertoire orchestra, one that provided conservatoire students with the opportunity to read through pieces they might not otherwise set eyes on before professional auditions. "When I was a student we had three hours of orchestra a week, the same amount that the college were doing in 1850—and look what had happened to music in those 100 years!" That first Saturday-morning session in May 1956 was spent tackling works including Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
’s First Symphony and Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
’s Till Eulenspiegel, with some Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
thrown in.
It wasn’t long before the students decided they wanted to give a concert. A début programme was scheduled for 5 December 1956; but KSO’s first appearance actually came a couple of weeks earlier, when Head was asked to put on a last-minute performance at Hove Town Hall in support of the Hungarian Relief Fund. The clarinet section for that first concert comprised Alan Hacker
Alan Ray Hacker
Alan Ray Hacker OBE FRAM is an English clarinettist and professor of the Royal Academy of Music.-Early life:He was born in 1938, the son of Kenneth and Sybil Hacker...
and Paul Harvey—both familiar names to today’s clarinettists—and a young Royal Artillery bandsman called Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
. In honour of the Hungarian cause, the programme included Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
’s Piano Concerto No. 3, written only ten years earlier. Even in that first concert, KSO’s predilection for the new, the unfamiliar and the downright difficult—what one of Head’s players would come to refer to as ‘backs-to-the-wall-again’ music—was shaping itself.
Powered by Head’s hard work, and with its few expenses met by a postwar Labour government keen to support anything that might fall under the remit of further education, KSO flourished. Fundamentally, Head still saw it as a repertoire orchestra, something that was to continue for two decades and more. A typical schedule from 1978 has the orchestra rehearsing Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
one week, Bliss
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO was an English composer and conductor.Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army...
and Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
the next, Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
the week after. Yet the concerts continued, and grew more and more ambitious. Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
’s Alexander Nevsky received an early UK performance from KSO at the 1963 St Pancras Festival
Camden Festival
Camdem Festival was an annual spring festival held in London, England, of which opera was the central feature.Founded in 1954 and continuing until 1987, it was originally called the St Pancras Festival until 1965. It specialised in the revival of long-forgotten operas, some of which subsequently...
; several now-standard works including Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
’s Das Klagende Lied and Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
’s Messa di Gloria were introduced to UK audiences by KSO. As the orchestra for Opera Viva, another of Head’s brainchildren, KSO (in all but name—the sponsoring Fulham council insisted they dropped the "Kensington") performed in well-received exhumations of early Wagner, Verdi and Donizetti operas with distinguished singers including Pauline Tinsley and the young John Tomlinson
John Tomlinson
John Tomlinson may refer to:*John Tomlinson , British educationalist*John Tomlinson , English opera singer*John Tomlinson, Baron Tomlinson , Lord Tomlinson of Walsall, former MP and MEP...
.
Yet the boldest venture was perhaps KSO’s 1961 UK premiere of the vast, original 1901 version of Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
’s Gurrelieder. The huge forces this required (eight of each woodwind instrument, for a start) put it way beyond the capacity and budget of most groups employing professionals. This, Head thought, was exactly where KSO should be coming in. Not everyone agreed. "I wrote to the Arts Council
Arts council
An arts council is a government or private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing events at home and abroad...
to ask for an extra £100," he remembers. “And they answered saying that I shouldn’t even be attempting a work like this, and that they had told the National Association of Music Societies not to give us anything either.” The performance went ahead regardless, and was a huge success.
Under Russell Keable
In the 1983-4 season, Head retired as KSO’s music director and handed over to Russell Keable. By this time the balance had shifted firmly towards amateur players. Changes in conservatoire curriculi during the 1970s had meant that their students no longer needed KSO to bridge the gap. And so, the age range of the orchestra had begun to broaden, as had the geographical spread of its players, who came from all over London and, occasionally, beyond. The 30th anniversary concert in 1986 was celebrated with an all-British programme of WaltonWilliam Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
, Stanford
Charles Stanford
Charles Stanford may refer to:*Charles Villiers Stanford , Irish composer* Charles Stanford , Baptist minister...
and Wilfrid Josephs in the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
. This marked KSO’s South Bank début. “It was,” says Keable, “also a milestone in terms of performance quality.” At around this time the orchestra began to give concerts in St John's, Smith Square. “It was a really happy orchestra, and that was absolutely key in its development. If an orchestra is happy socialising it will play better,” said Keable.
Today, St John’s is effectively KSO’s performing home. Most of its six concerts each year are given there, with occasional visits to the Cadogan Hall
Cadogan Hall
Cadogan Hall is a 900-seat capacity concert hall on Sloane Terrace in Chelsea / Belgravia in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, United Kingdom...
or the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
. The line-up varies very slightly from concert to concert, but the orchestra inspires considerable commitment. The four woodwind principals have around 75 years of service between them. Many are National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain alumni, people who chose not to turn professional as players, and many are employed in the music industry in other capacities.
In 1996, Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
’s opera, Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the composer and Paul Schott , and is based on Bruges-la-Morte, a short novel by Georges Rodenbach.-Performance history:When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on December 4, 1920, Korngold was just 23...
, received its UK premiere, a concert performance by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Russell Keable at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with Ian Caley (Paul) and Christine Teare (Marie/Marietta), thirteen years before the first UK staged performance at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden. Head’s longstanding tradition of programming unusual or neglected works by British composers has been maintained—perhaps most obviously in the premiere recording of Sir Henry Walford-Davies’ once-famous cantata Everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
, made with the London Oriana Choir in 2004. That recording was Gramophone Magazine's Editor’s Choice in February 2005. Also in 2004, the orchestra together with the BBC Concert Orchestra
BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra....
premiered Errollyn Wallen
Errollyn Wallen
Errollyn Wallen is a Belize born, British composer. She was the first black woman to have a work performed at The Proms She studied composition at Goldsmith's College and at Kings College, London University...
’s Spirit Symphony – Speed-Dating for Two Orchestras, conducted by Russell Keable
Russell Keable
Russell Keable is a British educator, composer and conductor. Keable studied conducting at the Royal College of Music with Norman Del Mar and later with George Hurst...
and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. That performance won the BBC 3 Listeners’ Award in 2005. That year, the orchestra celebrated its 50th anniversary by performing at the Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
with pianist Nikolai Demidenko
Nikolai Demidenko
Nikolai Demidenko is a Russian pianist.Demidenko studied at the Moscow Gnessin School with Anna Kantor and at the Moscow Conservatoire under Dmitri Bashkirov. Demidenko was a medallist at the 1976 Montreal International Piano Competition and the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Competition...
. And in 2007, at Cadogan Hall
Cadogan Hall
Cadogan Hall is a 900-seat capacity concert hall on Sloane Terrace in Chelsea / Belgravia in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, United Kingdom...
, the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, once again under Russell Keable
Russell Keable
Russell Keable is a British educator, composer and conductor. Keable studied conducting at the Royal College of Music with Norman Del Mar and later with George Hurst...
's baton, accompanied Myleene Klass
Myleene Klass
Myleene Angela Quinn is an English singer, pianist, media personality and occasional model. She was formerly a member of the defunct British pop band Hear'Say.-Early life:...
, Alfie Boe
Alfie Boe
Alfred Giovanni Roncalli Boe, known professionally initially as Alf or Alfred Boe and now as Alfie Boe, , is an English tenor.-Background:...
, Natasha Marsh
Natasha Marsh
Natasha Jane Marsh is a Welsh operatic soprano. A highly-regarded performer in both opera and oratorio, her debut album, Amour, topped the classical album charts in 2007. She has toured with artists such as G4, Russell Watson, Il Divo and Paul Potts...
and Natalie Clein
Natalie Clein
Natalie Clein is a British cellist. Her mother is a professional violinist. Her sister is the actress Louisa Clein....
for EMI Classics
EMI Classics
EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....
, in a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of the EMI Music Sound Foundation.
The orchestra is more involved than ever in promoting new compositions. In 2004 KSO commissioned and premiered Hovercraft by Joby Talbot
Joby Talbot
Joby Talbot is a British composer.Born in Wimbledon, London, Talbot studied composition at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under Brian Elias and Simon Bainbridge....
, which he then incorporated into the ballet Chroma by the Royal Ballet in 2007. Works by John Woolrich
John Woolrich
John Woolrich is a British composer. He was BBC Radio 3 'Composer of the Week' in March 2008, involving the broadcast of over 4 hours of his music in one week.-External links:**...
, Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
, Robin Holloway
Robin Holloway
Robin Greville Holloway is an English composer.-Early life:From 1952 to 1957, he was a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral...
and both Colin
Colin Matthews
Colin Matthews OBE is an English composer of classical music.-Early life and education:Matthews was born in London in 1946; his older brother is the composer David Matthews. He read classics at the University of Nottingham, and then studied composition there with Arnold Whittall, and with Nicholas...
and David Matthews
David Matthews
David Matthews may refer to:* Dave Matthews , singer/guitarist of the Dave Matthews Band* David Matthews , MP for Swansea East 1919–1922* David Matthews , American bi-racial author...
have also featured in recent years, often in their London or UK premières. For composers, the chance to have their work rehearsed at proper length and performed with enthusiasm can be a welcome change from the professional norm. For the players, breaking new ground brings greater risks but commensurate rewards. "An amateur orchestra can be simply there for the indulgence of its members, or it can try to do things that professional orchestras either can’t or don’t want to," says Keable. "It can try to make a difference."
Recent repertoire
- June 2012
- Peter Nagle: The Gull Catchers (World premère)
SibeliusJean SibeliusJean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
: Symphony No. 7
BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
: Symphony No. 1 - May 2012
- PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
: Tosca - Mar 2012
- WaltonWilliam WaltonSir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
: Symphony No. 2 - January 2012
- HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
: Concert Music for Strings and Brass
BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
: Variations on a Theme of Haydn
DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
: Cello Concerto - November 2011
- PärtArvo PärtArvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
: Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten
ShostakovichDmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
: Symphony No. 9
Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
: Symphony No. 6 - October 2011
- Stephen Goss: The Shard (World premère)
Peter Maxwell DaviesPeter Maxwell DaviesSir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
: Symphony No. 5
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 - June 2011
- SmetanaBedrich SmetanaBedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
: Overture, The Bartered Bride
AyresRichard AyresRichard Ayres is a British composer and teacher.Ayres was born in Cornwall, England in 1965. He followed Morton Feldman’s classes at the Darmstadt and Dartington summer schools. He studied composition, electronic music, and trombone at Huddersfield Polytechnic until 1989, graduating with...
: No. 37b (London première)
DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
: Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" - May 2011
- Lutosławski: Chantefleurs et Chantefables
MahlerGustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
: Symphony No. 4 - March 2011
- MartinůBohuslav MartinuBohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
: Memorial to Lidice
StravinksyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
: Symphony in Three Movements
Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
: A Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3) - January 2011
- PoulencFrancis PoulencFrancis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
: Les Biches
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 1
BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
: Symphony No. 8 - November 2010
- StraussJohann Strauss IIJohann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
: Perpetuum Mobile: musikalischer Scherz
HK GruberHeinz Karl GruberHeinz Karl Gruber is an Austrian composer, bass player and singer, born in Vienna on 3 January 1943 and a leading figure of the so-called Third Viennese School.-Career:...
: Charivari
DukasPaul DukasPaul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...
: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
: The Nutcracker, Act 2 - October 2010
- Thomas AdèsThomas AdèsThomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
: Dances from "Powder her Face"
David MatthewsDavid MatthewsDavid Matthews may refer to:* Dave Matthews , singer/guitarist of the Dave Matthews Band* David Matthews , MP for Swansea East 1919–1922* David Matthews , American bi-racial author...
: Symphony No. 7 (London première)
Edward ElgarEdward ElgarSir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
: Symphony No. 2 - June 2010
- WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
: Siegfried - Forest Murmurs
ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
: Larch Trees
SibeliusJean SibeliusJean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
: TapiolaTapiolaTapiola or Hagalund is a district of Espoo on the south coast of Finland, and is one of the major urban centres of Espoo...
NielsenCarl NielsenCarl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
: Symphony no.4 The Inextinguishable - May 2010
- SchubertFranz SchubertFranz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
: Symphony no.8 Unfinished
BrucknerAnton BrucknerAnton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
: Symphony no.9 - March 2010
- DeanBrett DeanBrett Dean is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.-Career:Dean studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he received a Medal of Excellence. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance...
: Komarov's Fall
BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
: Sinfonia da RequiemSinfonia da RequiemSinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20, for orchestra is a symphony written by Benjamin Britten in 1940 at the age of 26. It was one of several works commissioned from different composers by the Japanese Government to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire...
HolstGustav HolstGustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
: The PlanetsThe PlanetsThe Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst... - January 2010
- DohnányiErno DohnányiErnő Dohnányi was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. He used the German form of his name Ernst von Dohnányi for most of his published compositions....
: Symphonic Minutes
TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
: Violin Concerto with Jack Liebeck
StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
: Symphony in C - November 2009
- JanáčekLeoš JanácekLeoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
: Taras BulbaTaras BulbaTaras Bulba is a romanticized historical novel by Nikolai Gogol. It tells the story of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. Taras’ sons studied at the Kiev Academy and return home...
McCabeJohn McCabeJohn McCabe may refer to:*John McCabe , British composer and classical pianist*John McCabe , Shakespearean scholar and biographer*John McCabe , author and geneticist...
: Symphony 'Labyrinth'
ShostakovichDmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
: Symphony no.5 - October 2009
- DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
: IberiaIberiaThe name Iberia refers to three historical regions of the old world:* Iberian Peninsula, in Southwest Europe, location of modern-day Portugal and Spain** Prehistoric Iberia...
UllmannViktor UllmannViktor Ullmann was a Silesia-born Austrian, later Czech composer, conductor and pianist of Jewish origin.- Biography :...
: Symphony No. 2
StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
: PetrushkaPetrushkaPetrouchka or Petrushka is a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1910–11 and revised in 1947....
(1911 version) - June 2009
- ElgarEdward ElgarSir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
: Froissart
StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
: Horn Concerto No. 2 with Richard WatkinsRichard WatkinsRichard Watkins is a concerto soloist and chamber music player. He was Principal Horn of the Philharmonia from 1985 to 1996, a position he relinquished to devote more time to his solo career....
BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
: Symphony No. 3 - May 2009
- MahlerGustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
: Symphony No. 9 - March 2009
- Michael TorkeMichael TorkeMichael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...
: Bright Blue Music
GershwinGeorge GershwinGeorge Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
: An American in Paris
IvesCharles IvesCharles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
: Decoration Day
CoplandAaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
: Symphony No. 3
- January 2009
- FauréGabriel FauréGabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
: Pelléas et Mélisande Suite
BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
: Violin Concerto with Jack Liebeck
SibeliusJean SibeliusJean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
: Symphony No. 3
External links
1. http://www.kso.org.uk2. http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_features.php?id=3782