At last we’re able to return to live public performances now that we’re liberated from lockdown. So please join us for this special out-of-lockdown concert.
Tony Ryan conducts a programme with a strong liberation theme, including his own most recent composition, The Lockdown March, written in May during Alert Level 4.

Beethoven’s Incidental Music to Goethe’s play Egmont is also very much about liberation, in this case, the liberation of the Flemish people from Spanish invaders. Soprano Helen Charlton joins us for the two vocal numbers.

The Barber of Seville tells the story of Rosina’s liberation from the scheming clutches of her elderly guardian, Doctor Bartolo; the famous overture from Rossini’s opera opens our programme.

Two of the orchestra’s string principals, Cornelia Didenco (violin) and Janet Cubey (cello) feature in short concertante pieces by Massenet which are also closely linked to our concert theme – the popular,  Méditation from the opera Thaïs and the strikingly beautiful string orchestra prelude, The Last Sleep of the Virgin.

The major works on our programme are both by Schubert. His Symphony No. 6, The Little C Major Symphony, is a sunny, optimistic piece, while the Great Ninth Symphony lay buried among the composer’s manuscripts, only to be liberated from obscurity in its first performance eleven years after his death.
Our concert will end with the glorious third movement from Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C Major, The Great.