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10
Nov 2023
Ripon orchestra opens new season with Saturday evening concert
Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra opens its 2023/24 season on Saturday (November 11) with a programme, featuring the work of three major composers.
Beginning with Grieg’s ever-popular Holberg Suite and culminating in Tchaikovsky’s virtuosic tour-de-force for strings: Souvenir de Florence, the concert at Holy Trinity Church will also include Benjamin Britten’s atmospheric song cycle exploring the calm and sinister aspects of night: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.
The Holberg Suite harks back to the music of the 1700s but with a distinctly Romantic twist. It is one of most readily recognisable pieces of the string orchestra repertoire, with its rhythmic and driving opening Prelude, lyrical Sarabande and boisterous Rigaudon (featuring sparkling solos from the first violin and viola).
Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings was composed for his partner, Peter Pears and horn player Dennis Brain, who premiered the work together in 1943.
The 6 sung movements draw on poetry from across the ages, from an anonymous writer in the 1400s through to Blake, Keats and Tennyson, framed at the opening and close by two movements played by the horn alone.
St Cecilia Orchestra will accompany soloist performances from Yorkshire tenor, Nicholas Watts, known to local audiences for his work with Opera North and French horn player, Catherine Hewitt, who enjoys a busy freelance career across the north of England.
After the interval the orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. Originally composed for string sextet, but often played by full string orchestra, this is a hugely challenging work, which reflects the composer’s delight in writing for string instruments.
A real virtuosic tour-de-force, promises to send the audience away musically fulfilled and uplifted
Tickets for the concert priced at £20 for adults and free for under 18s can be obtained online from Ticket Source (www.ticketsource.co.uk/st-cecilia), They can also be purchased in person from Harrogate Theatre and the Little Ripon Bookshop, or can be bought on the door from 7pm on Saturday.
The choice of music signals a busy Saturday evening for the string section of the orchestra (pictured above) Picture: St Cecelia Orchestra
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