MenuWe are a friendly amateur orchestra and registered charity based in Streatham, South London. We are conducted by prize-winning conductors from the Royal Academy of Music, where many of our soloists come from too.
We enjoy playing from a wide repertoire, and perform 3 or 4 concerts a year, mainly in local concert venues, although past locations include Southwark and St George's Cathedrals, Arundel Castle, Croydon Clocktower and Fairfield Hall. We also take part in concerts with St Bartholomew's Polyphony Choir. We raise money for charity through our concerts, and have raised tens of thousands of pounds during the 40 years we've been established. During the last year we have played for charities feeding infants in Sudan, helping restore St John's Church Upper Norwood (one of our venues), and opening up opportunities and training for young musicians in Madagascar.
Click here to read about the works performed in our past concerts.
If you are looking for a lively, welcoming orchestra that enjoys making music to a high standard and at the same time helps others, this is the orchestra for you. We have low subscriptions, and full-time students are completely exempt. We also enjoy ideal rehearsal facilities with easy access.
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If you wish to find out more about our orchestra or are interested in joining, please do get in touch.
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For our latest concert we returned to the very welcoming and lovely surroundings of St Philip’s in Norwood. There was a large audience there to hear a varied and interesting programme. We were very lucky to be conducted by Peggy Wu who took over from Nick Kohn at fairly short notice and brought great sensitivity and enthusiasm to both rehearsals and performance. In addition to the change of conductor two key players had serious accidents to their instruments on the day of the concert, but were able to make adequate repairs before the performance. The orchestra rose to these challenges with impressive flexibility and commitment.
We opened with a premier of Jupp’s “Suite – National folk songs”. This follows on the tradition in British music of combining and arranging traditional melodies to express complex emotions. This was very well received, and special mention should be made of the beautiful cello solo, “All Through The Night”, by our principal cellist Christine Jaccoby.
Next came Mozart’s “Exultate, Jubilate”. Ruth Holton (who also played in the viola section) gave a Exultant and Jubilant performance, negotiating the virtuosic passages with brilliance and beauty.
The second half consisted of the remarkable Serenade No 1 for orchestra by Brahms. This is a work on a grand scale. There are challenging and beautiful passages for all sections of the orchestra, and the piece was very enthusiastically received.
Our next concert is also at St Philip’s in Norbury, on November 24th 2019. The full programme will be announced shortly.
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