Our Last Year in 10 Pictures

Before we begin our new season, we’ve been looking back at all the events and activity of the past 12 months, and we thought we’d share our top 10 moments/photos with you. It has been a fantastic year for CLS, with a huge range of successful concerts as well as our Meet the Music activities, Weber CD recording and tour to Cartagena in Colombia. We’re looking forward to another packed year for the 2011-12 season and hope to see you at our performances in London and throughout the UK.

 

Stephen Layton conducts the Britons and Baltics concert, Cadogan Hall, Oct 2010

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Cartagena International Music Festival, Columbia, January 2011

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Children enjoy Crash Bang Wallop! concert, March 2011

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High Wycombe concert rehearsal, May 2011

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City of London Festival, June 2011

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Early Years workshop in

High Wycombe

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Recording our Weber CD with

Michael Collins

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Rehearsing for our Prom, August 2011

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Amos, one of the stars of our new London Brochure, on his photoshoot

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Our next concert:

War and Peace

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

Tuesday 27 September 7.30pm

Tickets: £30, £25, £20, £15, £10 (concessions available)

Get CLoSer to CLS

When watching a classical concert it is hard not to wonder at the intricacies of orchestral performance, not only how the sheer precision needed in timing and tempo is achieved, but how the problematic sections of a composition are conquered by a conductor, or simply how a musician prepares for such a piece. Many of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ aspects of orchestras are never shared with those who want to know the most, their audience. CLS are launching a brand new concert series called CLoSer, which will help to answer many of your queries in an informal atmosphere with a glass of wine in your hand!

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CLoSer launches on 22 November in one of East London's newest venues: Village Underground. These concerts, in partnership with Spitalfields Music, are designed to allow you to get closer to our orchestra with 'talking' programme notes throughout the performance, post concert music and discussion, as well as the chance to mingle with our musicians. And we have three very different concerts lined up to satisfy all curiosities:

Strings Masterclass – Tues 22 Nov 2011

John Adams Shaker Loops                                                            
TBC Clarinet Concertino
 Bartok Divertimento for Strings

Michael Collins clarinet/conductor

Spirit of the Voice – Weds 29 Feb 2012

Poulenc Suite Française                                                              
JS Bach French Suite                                                                  
Poulenc Le Bal Masque
Knut Nystedt Immortal Bach
Stravinsky Mass

Stephen Layton conductor
Holst Singers

Jazz Finale – Weds 25 April 2012

Milhaud La Creation du Monde
Mark-Anthony Turnage Eulogy
Gwilym Simcock Compositions

Clark Rundell conductor
Gwilym Simcock piano

Finally quench your thirst for orchestral knowledge and book tickets to get CLoSer to us!

Booking opens 5 September on 020 7377 1362 or spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk.

Tickets £15 (includes one free drink)
Early Bird Tickets – 20 £1 tickets available for each concert on a first come first served basis (phone booking only). Find out more here
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Concert Focus: BBC Proms

We’re still buzzing from our Proms performance on Sunday night at the Royal Albert Hall, which saw the premiere of Colin Matthews’ ‘beautifully crafted’ and ‘vividly painted’ No Man’s Land, a memorial to the casualties of the First World War, which was commissioned by our founder, the late Richard Hickox, just days before his death. With such an overwhelmingly positive response from critics, audience members and listeners on BBC Radio 3, we thought we’d share with you some of the reviews and behind the scenes pictures from the concert rehearsals. You might spot some of our CLS friends sitting amongst the Orchestra in rehearsal, just one of the many benefits our regular supporters enjoy!

If you missed the concert, there is still a chance to listen to it here.

 

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The Daily Telegraph, 4 * * * *

“City of London Sinfonia... are sufficiently cohesive and eloquently shaped as to render [Mozart’s] Requiem... seamless and unfailingly expressive."

 

The Guardian, 4 * * * *

“A strikingly atmospheric score”

 

Evening Standard, 4 * * * *

Holiday Playlist

Judging by the number of Out of Office replies we’re getting in our Inboxes at the moment, it seems as if everyone is on holiday! We’ve compiled a playlist of great holiday music to keep us all thinking about the Sun, sea and relaxing in the City in the summer. Listen to our Spotify playlist as a soundtrack to your summer holiday, or as a bit of relief from work if you’re at the office!

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Concert Focus - Mozart's Requiem

Mozart’s Requiem is considered as one of the greatest pieces in the composer’s extensive repertoire and is particularly famous for being left unfinished at his untimely death. It is an enigmatic work due to the controversy surrounding how much of the piece was actually completed by Mozart himself. His wife, Constanze, arranged for the Requiem to be finished by Franz Xaver Süssmayr in order to receive full payment from the anonymous commissioner, who turned out to be Count Franz von Walsegg, who required a Requiem following the death of his wife. He received the work, along with Mozart’s counterfeited signature, believing it to have been composed entirely by him.

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The myths surrounding the piece have been contributed to by modern works such as Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus (1979), in which the mysterious messenger who delivers the commission is the disguised composer-rival Antonio Salieri. The ideas in this film are based on a nineteenth-century play by Alexander Pushkin entitled Mozart and Salieri, which was turned into an opera by Risky-Korsakov.

To experience the wonders of the piece recently voted as the Nation’s Favourite Mozart piece by BBC Radio 3 listeners, come to our Prom on Sunday, where we’re performing with our Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Stephen Layton’s fantastic vocal ensemble Polyphony.

For a flavour of the concert, listen to our Spotify playlist.

Emma Bell soprano
Ian Bostridge tenor
James Rutherford bass
Renarta Pokupic mezzo-soprano
Roderick Williams baritone
Stephen Layton conductor

Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore,
London, SW7 2AP

Sunday 21st August 2011 at 7.00pm

Tickets: £7.50 - £36

Retrospect: Meet the Music

This summer has seen a real focus for CLS on work with young children. It’s an exciting part of Meet the Music as these projects reach not only the babies and toddlers, who are going through such an important developmental time in their lives, but an equal number of parents and carers, many of whom have never been to an orchestral concert or met a classical musician.

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June saw the culmination of our new joint venture at Great Ormond Street Hospital, with students from the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). Our workshop leader Sam Glazer and musicians from CLS and RAM worked with children in the hospital over 4 workshop sessions, to develop material which was then recorded by the musicians at the RAM recording studio.

As part of our residency in High Wycombe, CLS musicians and presenter Claire Bloor visited four early years groups for workshops. Response to the project in Wycombe was overwhelmingly positive, with one parent commenting that the sessions had “renewed my love of the violin!!! “

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In July, we visited The Meadow’s Children’s Centre in Harlow for the first time to deliver a series of workshops followed by two sold out concerts. Members of the Orchestra and presenter Claire Bloor introduced the young children to the world of music through the theme of Animals – the children were encouraged to dress as their favourite animal and made their own animal masks and fishing rods! Once again these concerts were extremely well received, with audience comments including: “The best thing I have ever been to!”

A CLS brass trio was also part of a Family Day which took place at Snape Maltings – part of CLS’s growing relationship with local authorities in Suffolk. We’re already getting hugely excited about our return to Suffolk and a week of Lullaby Concerts in October, which this time will feature all things magical.

See our website for details of our Crash Bang Wallop! Magic concert on Saturday 5 November.

London Brochure: the ones that got away!

We’re celebrating the launch of our first online London concerts brochure today, which features all the details of our upcoming events from September 2011 to February 2012.  We had a great time on the photo shoots and thought we’d share with you some of the photos which didn’t quite make it into the brochure!  

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With thanks to our fantastic brochure stars: Lynda, Amos, Helen, Jane and Nick, and our photographer Ben Ealovega.

 View the full online brochure

Flashback - First Prom 1973

For this instalment of Flashback, we’re heading back to our first ever BBC Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday 1 August 1973, when CLS was still known as the Richard Hickox Orchestra. The Orchestra performed Handel’s Messiah with the Richard Hickox Singers (also founded in 1971) alongside a host of incredibly talented soloists, many of whom were budding young stars and have since gone on to great things!

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Back then we were joined by Stephen Cleobury on the organ, now better known for being Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral and Director of Music of the world-renowned Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Alastair Ross who is still a member of CLS, performed as a soloist on the harpsichord too.

Our vocal soloists on the night included the late Philip Langridge, a tenor who became famous for performing the works of Benjamin Britten and was regarded as the true successor of Peter Pears, baritone Raimund Herincx who has since appeared with the Welsh National Opera and at the Royal Opera House, and James Bowman who has become arguably the most acclaimed countertenor of his generation.

This year we’re returning to the Proms on Sunday 21 August to perform a new work by Colin Matthews, No Man’s Land, which was commissioned by the late Richard Hickox, alongside Britten’s Variations on a theme of Bridge, and Mozart’s Requiem, recently voted the Nation’s Favourite Mozart piece by BBC Radio 3 listeners.

For a flavour of our upcoming Prom, listen to our Spotify playlist.

 

Sunday 21 August
Royal Albert Hall
Tickets: £7.50 - £36

The Score - Dan Jenkins

We caught up with our Principal Trombone Dan Jenkins, who joined the Orchestra in 2004. He studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and also plays in the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Your CLS career to date

I joined CLS in 2004 having worked increasingly with the Orchestra for three or four years before that. I took over from the late great Roger Brenner when he moved from Principal to Second Trombone.

Your most memorable concert?

Particularly memorable concerts include Stravinsky’s Pulcinella in Dublin - such a wonderful piece of music, with a great bombastic trombone solo in it, and a joyful last movement. And secondly, the trip the Orchestra took to Dubai in 2006. I thought it was just past Europe and didn't realise we were going most of the way to India until we got on the plane! A spectacular show for the Sultan, outdoors in a hot Arabian breeze, with acrobats abseiling down the nearby skyscrapers whilst we played.

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How do you relax away from CLS?

Cooking is very relaxing and creative. I love playing snooker, and have played hundreds of games over the years.

What would be your choices on Desert Island Discs?

I'm afraid my Desert Island Discs wouldn't be classical at all; I listen to heavy rock guitar, people like Jo Satriani and Gary Moore!

To read the full version of this interview visit our website.

Concert Focus – Geoffrey Burgon

On 21 July we’re celebrating the life and work of the late Geoffrey Burgon with performances of a selection of his film and television music, as well as two of his concertos. Burgon is famous for the accessibility of his music, rebelling against avant-garde orthodoxies which controlled commissions and performance at the beginning of his career. He produced over 200 compositions during his lifetime, and is considered as one of the gems of English contemporary music.

 

Born in 1941 Burgon went to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama originally to train as a jazz trumpeter. However, composition took over as his major interest and he found success writing ballet scores for Ballet Rambert and London Contemporary Dance Theatre. It was his incredibly popular Requiem that established Burgon as a serious composer, and his reputation was sealed. Much of his fame developed from his wonderful scores for film and television, including  Brideshead Revisited in 1981, which led to many offers from Hollywood. He is also known for his music for Doctor Who in the 1970s, Bleak House (1985), the Chronicles of Narnia (1988-90), Robin Hood (1991), and The Forsyte Saga (2002-03).

 

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It would be wrong to pigeon hole Burgon in the film/television composer bracket. His Viola Concerto, know as Ghosts of the Dance was commissioned by concert soloist Philip Dukes, and was influenced by 1930s American dance music and the effects of the Depression. In his Cello Concerto, a piece which explores the relationship between soloist and orchestra in a novel way, Burgon began to see the soloist as a figure in Film Noir, pursued by dark forces but prevailing and eventually escaping to a dreamlike ‘Hollywood Heaven’ world.

 

For a flavour of some of the music we’ll be performing at the concert listen to our Spotify playlist.


Thursday 21 July, 7.30pm

St John’s, Smith Square

Tickets: £34.50, £28, £18

 

Viola Concerto
Cello Concerto
Extracts from TV and Film scores

 

The event will be presented by Monty Python’s Terry Jones.