Peter Scholes
Conductor
Santiago
Canon Valencia
Violoncello
Our first concert for the year features the brilliant cellist Santiago Canon Valencia who in 2010 won the top prize in the International Beijing Cello Competition. He will play the exciting and dramatic first concerto by Shostakovich. Nino Rota is well known for his film music (the Godfather and films by Felini) but also wrote music for the concert hall. Mozart’s 39th symphony is one of his most well known with its majestic introduction and interplay between the winds and strings.
Peter Scholes
Conductor
Pene Pati
Tenor
Emma Richards
French Horn
Two charming early works by Mozart and Haydn contrast with two English 20th century works. Britten’s Serenade will be sung by Pene Pati, winner of the New Zealand Aria competition. He was also finalist in the 2010 McDonald’s Aria in Australia. It sets poetry on the subject of night by Tennyson, Blake, Keats and others. The Fantasia Concertante is one of Tippett’s most popular and frequently performed works.
Peter Scholes Conductor
This is a concert of string orchestra music from five different countries. From Poland we have a work by Górecki who had an extraordinary success with his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Ginastera was an Argentine composer who studied with Copland and who taught the famous composer of tangos, Ástor Piazzola. Skalkottas come from Greece and these dance movements are inspired by Greek folk music. The Welsh Karl Jenkins is famous for his “Armed Man – A Mass for Peace”. Palladio was inspired by the sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. The final nationality represented in this concert is Sweden. Wirén’s Serenade is a melodious and beautiful work.
Peter Scholes
Conductor
Claire Scholes
Mezzo soprano
Awaken your mind from its midwinter hibernation in this concert of works to stir the imagination. The vividly programmatic Till Eulenspiegel explosively portrays the story of trickster Merry Andrew, followed by Berio’s beautiful and sensitively coloured arrangements of folk songs from North America to Armenia. Ibert’s Divertissement is an effervescent ensemble showpiece, and the ACO embraces Schoenberg’s full-throttle Chamber Symphony No. 1.
Peter Scholes
Conductor
Huw Dann
Trumpet
Forget everything you thought you knew about trumpeters and experience Haydn’s Concerto played with clarity, grace and beauty by renowned soloist Huw Dann. The tempestuous, operatically inspired 8th Symphony ‘Le Soir’ marks Haydn’s stormy transition from Baroque to Classical style, and Schoenberg’s epic Verklärte Nacht delivers a message of passion and compassion against a gleaming, moonlit landscape.
Peter Scholes
Conductor
Sarah Watkins
Piano
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Peter Scholes in concert with charismatic and inspirational pianist Sarah Watkins. Poulenc’s quirky and lyrical Sonata precedes a dark and autumnal Brahms at his most romantic. The clarinet becomes a human voice in the melodically ravishing Schumann Fantasy Pieces, while Weber’s Grande Duo Concertante exhibits both soloists in a dazzling virtuosic display.