News & Engagements

Pro Corda Junior Course — Leiston Abbey

This week (9th — 15th April) I am once again working with young string players aged 12 — 14 at the In­ter­na­tional Chamber Music Academy. It is such a ma­gical place as the build­ings are built into the Abbey ruins, which dates back to 1789. With the string or­chestra I am con­ducting Mendelssohn’s String Sym­phony No. IX. To sup­port their chamber or­ches­tral skills, each stu­dent will have a turn at con­ducting the or­chestra being coached by my­self. This will allow the stu­dents to fur­ther un­der­stand the re­la­tion­ship between con­ductor and player and help the mu­si­cians play as one large com­mu­nic­ative body. The con­cert is Sunday afternoon!

Llyr Williams, Cambrian Philharmonic Orchestra, Cantorion Rhos Choir

On Sat­urday 31st March, the Cam­brian Phil­har­monic Or­chestra and Can­torion Rhos Choir join forces for what prom­ises to be a spe­cial evening of music  at St Giles Church, Wrexham. We wel­come in­ter­na­tion­ally ac­claimed pi­anist Llyr Wil­liams, who will per­form Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy for Piano, Or­chestra and Choir. I have played in various orchestra’s ac­com­pa­nying Llyr in con­certos, how­ever this is the first time I have worked with Llyr as a con­ductor. The choir and or­chestra also com­bine in the second half for a per­form­ance of Faure’s Re­quiem.  Con­cert starts at 7.30pm. I re­com­mend ar­riving early as we an­ti­cipate the con­cert to be a sell-out.

Beeth­oven: Egmont Over­ture

Beeth­oven: Choral Fantasy

Faure: Re­quiem

Trafford Youth Orchestra

Sunday 25th March is the con­cert ex­tra­vag­anza day for all en­sembles which form part of the youth or­chestra set-up for the Music Ser­vice. The con­cert is once again at the Robert Boult Theatre at Sale Wa­ter­side Arts Centre. I con­duct the Ju­nior String En­semble and I am de­lighted that we have con­tinued to at­tract many new players from the Music Centres and from schools across the Bor­ough which feed into the youth or­ches­tras. Con­cert is at 3.00pm!

Philharmonic Brass at the Penistone Paramount

Over the next two weeks I have been in­vited to con­duct the Phil­har­monic Brass who re­hearse in El­land, in pre­par­a­tion for their up­coming con­cert on 17th March with Mill­house Green Male Voice Choir. De­tails of which can be found here. I con­ducted a Brass Band made up of stu­dents for a close friend’s final re­cital at the RNCM a few years ago. It’s great to be working with this out­standing Brass Ensemble.

NEW Sinfonia in Wrexham

Come and hear NEW Sin­fonia in col­lab­or­a­tion with Cor Ysgol Morgan Llwyd, raising money for Night­in­gale House Hos­pice on Sunday 11th March 2012 at the Main Hall of Yale Col­lege Wrexham starting at 7.00 pm . The con­cert show­cases Welsh Harpist El­fair Grug in a per­form­ance of Wil­liam Mathias’s Harp Con­certo and tal­ented sop­rano Hannah Wil­liams  who will sing Suo Gan. The NEW Sin­fonia will also per­form Britten’s Sin­foni­etta, Op.1 , as­well as per­forming two other works with the choir.

Tickets are avail­able direct from Night­in­gale House Hospice.