Winchmore String Orchestra Concert in aid of The Arts Foundation

Winchmore String Orchestra

A British theme runs through this concert, with pieces by six composers representing the great variety of music associated with these isles. The earliest is William BOYCE, Master of the King’s Musick under George II whose legacy includes the music for the poem Heart of Oak, today the official march of the Royal Navy. We shall be playing his Symphony No 1. Another “towering figure in the history of British music”, as he has been described, was Malcolm ARNOLD, whose immense output ranges from symphonies and chamber music to works for brass and wind bands and no fewer than 132 film scores, among them the music for Bridge on the River Kwai which won him an Oscar. Our programme includes his Oboe Concerto, with Joel Wilson, a young local performer, playing the solo part. Less well-known is Cecil Armstrong GIBBS. Born into the family that gave the world Gibbs’s toothpaste, he was a teacher and composer during the last century with much orchestral, chamber and choral music to his credit and a penchant for British folk song. His contribution to our programme is his suite for strings titled Shade and Shine. Of interest in the light of current public debate is that two of the composers figuring in our concert, both leading figures in British music, came from immigrant families: Gustav HOLST, of Swedish descent, whose Fugal Concerto for oboe and flute will be played by Joel Wilson and his sister, Jessie May Wilson; and Frederick DELIUS, the son of German parents, whose atmospheric Two Aquarelles were originally written for unaccompanied choir. The concert will end with John IRELAND’s Downland Suite, written for brass band but adapted for string orchestra and now a classic work for that ensemble. TM