Winchmore String Orchestra Concert in aid of Haringey Young Musicians

Winchmore String Orchestra

IT’S FOLK NIGHT, FOLKS – AND MUCH MORE!

What do the following composers have in common: Gustav Holst, famous for his suite The Planets; John Rutter, much admired by choral groups here and in the USA for his carols and church music; American Clare Grundman, who once played the clarinet on transatlantic passenger ships; and Australian-born Percy Grainger, a celebrated pianist who served for a time as a military bandsman in America?

Well, they all spoke English as their first language.  But more than that, they were all keenly interested in folk music and all wrote pieces based on traditional tunes from the British Isles.  And this brings them together, along with a raft of other composers, in our next concert.

HOLST will be represented by an arrangement of his Seven Scottish Airs and RUTTER by his Suite for Strings, which is based on old British tunes. Clare GRUNDMAN (a man, despite his first name), who produced many pieces and arrangements for bands, as well as scores for Hollywood films, Broadway musicals and broadcast programmes, figures twice – with his Irish Rhapsody and his English Suite.  And Percy GRAINGER appears with one of his best-known pieces, Molly on the Shore, which is derived from two Irish reels.

But there is much more besides, including three works involving a trumpet, played by Peter Desmond: a Sonata by PURCELL, a Sonata by the 17th-century Italian GABRIELLI , and a Tango Argentino by Adam GORB, who is a professor of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music and who has collected folk music from around the world.  A movement from the Palladio suite by Welsh composer Karl JENKINS and the evergreen Serenade for String Orchestra by ELGAR complete the programme.