Tickets are now on sale for both the remaining concerts in the IWSO’s current season, so why not get yourself (and your friends) good seats by booking early? If you’d like to help spread the word about the excellent music on offer, why not download and distribute a poster or two too?
Tickets (and posters!) for remaining concerts now available!
Upcoming Concerts and Events
Aki Blendis, Violin
Sunday 5th November 2023, 7.15pm Brigg Fair: An English Rhapsody, Frederick Delius Violin Concerto, Samuel Barber Soloist: Aki Blendis Symphony No.1 in D ‘Titan’, Gustav Mahler We open the 2023 /24 season with Brigg Fair: An English Rhapsody by Frederick Delius. Delius wrote his rhapsody for large orchestra in 1907. He dedicated it to his friend Percy Grainger, who had collected the song, Brigg Fair, in Lincolnshire some two years earlier. The song tells of a young man who sets out for the fair on a hazy August morning to meet his sweetheart. Delius’ work is a theme and set of variations. Samuel Barber composed his Violin Concerto in 1939. The first two movements were written while the composer was in Switzerland, but the outbreak of World War II curtailed his writing and he did not start the final movement until he was back in the USA. The first two movements are lyrical and melodic yet the finale is played at breakneck speed, never pauses and utilises complex rhythmic devices. The solo violin plays in a perpetual, continual motion with only two orchestral breaks. The IWSO is delighted to welcome Aki Blendis, string finalist in the BBC Young Musician of […]
Finn Mannion, Cello
Saturday 20th January 2024, 7.15pm Prince Igor Overture, Alexander Borodin A Somerset Rhapsody, Gustav Holst Variations on a Rococo Theme, Pyotr Tchaikovsky Soloist: Finn Mannion Symphony No.1 in D minor, Sergei Rachmaninov The IWSO is delighted to welcome back the talented young conductor James Thomas. His concert last year, which featured Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony, was incredibly well-received and the orchestra had no hesitation in offering an invitation to James to conduct again this season. This concert begins with the overture to Borodin’s opera Prince Igor. Borodin began work on the opera in 1869 and he worked on it for the rest of his life. His work was hampered in two fronts, firstly his own self-critical personality and his demanding position as Professor of Chemistry at St. Petersburg Medical Academy. His friend, composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, assisted him in orchestrating the Polovtsian Dances a decade later but on his death in 1887, Borodin left significant parts of the opera in rough sketch form only. The overture is largely constructed by Alexander Glazunov, who had to rely on his memory of hearing Borodin playing it on the piano, as well as interpreting the rough sketches discovered in his papers. Composed in 1906, Gustav […]
Viv McLean, Piano
Saturday 16th March 2024, 7.15pm Le Chasseur Maudit, César Franck Piano Concerto in F, George Gershwin Soloist: Viv McLean Othello Suite, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Till Eulenspiegel, Richard Strauss To start this programme the IWSO will perform César Franck’s tone poem Le Chasseur Maudit or, in English, The Accursed Huntsman. Other than this overture and his Symphony in D, Franck’s output did not gain much recognition during his lifetime and today he remains in relative obscurity. That said, The Accursed Huntsman is an incredibly thrilling and melodic work. Viv McLean is an IWSO audience (and orchestra) favourite and we are delighted he makes his return to Medina Theatre once again to play George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Originally entitled New York Concerto, Gershwin began composing it in 1925 with the last movement completed within three months. He then went on to complete the first and second movements and fully orchestrated it himself. The form is relatively classical but it is the jazz elements that set it apart. The first movement employs a Charleston rhythm and is quick and pulsating. The second movement has a poetic nocturnal atmosphere as a form of blues with the final movement reverts to the style of the first. Samuel […]
Dmytro Fonariuk, Clarinet
Saturday 18th May 2024, 7.15pm Scenes from the Humber, Anthony Hedges Introduction, Theme and Variations, Gioacchino Rossini Soloist: Dmytro Fonariuk Night On Bare Mountain, Modeste Mussorgsky Concertino in E flat, Carl Maria von Weber Soloist: Dmytro Fonariuk Symphony No.2 in B minor, Alexander Borodin A musician of wide artistic tastes and talents, Anthony Hedges was initially educated at Bicester Grammar School. While there he became Organist of his local Methodist Church before heading to Oxford to study music. His abiding love of Yorkshire, including its dales and moors, developed during his years of National Service. He later moved to the East Riding which inspired a number of major works, not least the Scenes From The Humber which celebrated the Humber Bridge. Gioacchino Rossini is well known for his operatic output yet retired from composing in his early forties to concentrate on his other great loves —eating and drinking. His Introduction, Theme and Variations was composed when he was just 18 years old as a student project at the Bologna Conservatory of Music. It remains one of the most popular virtuosic works for clarinet to this day. The IWSO welcomes the you Ukrainian clarinettist, Dmytro Fonariuk, to perform with us for […]
Thomas Luke, Piano
Saturday 6th July 2024, 7.15pm Fanfare from La Péri, Paul Dukas Festivities, Roy Douglas Warsaw Concerto, Richard Addinsell Soloist: Thomas Luke Dance of the Hours, Amilcare Ponchielli Orb and Sceptre, William Walton Three Card Trick Suite, Pam Wedgwood Party Piece, Richard Rodney Bennett Billy The Kid, Aaron Copland Paul Dukas’ La Péri is a 1912 ballet in one act and is about a man’s search for immortality and an encounter with a mythological Péri (a winged, fairy-like creature). The original music to the ballet was written in 1911 as a Poème Dansé En Un Tableau (Dance Poem in One Scene), and was Dukas’ last published work. The opening fanfare is often performed separately and is a fitting start to our concert. Festivities, an orchestral overture by British composer Roy Douglas, was written 1972. Although having a large output of his own, Roy Douglas worked alongside Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton and Richard Adinsell as editor, copyist and amanuensis. his favourite recreation was motorcycling, travelling throughout England on a Triumph 200cc Tiger Cub until his doctor ordered him to stop after his 80th birthday Roy Douglas also orchestrated Richard Adinsell’s music for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight, which contained the popular […]