After a highly successful Christmas concert, the Wymondham Symphony Orchestra is now preparing an exciting programme for 2023.
The spring season features a nautical themed concert "Out to Sea", which takes place on Saturday 25th March at 7pm. The orchestra are delighted to be back in the fabulous surroundings of Wymondham Abbey - for the first time since 2019.
The concert will begin with Malcolm Arnold's "Padstow Lifeboat" originally written for a brass band to commemorate the opening of a new lifeboat station in Cornwall. Arnold was the orchestra's first patron and lived in Wymondham, so it is always a delight to perform his music - keep an ear out for the out of tune foghorn!
This is followed by the Adagio of Spartacus and Phyrgia by Khachaturian, better known to a certain generation as the theme from The Onedin Line, hence its inclusion here.
The programme continues with the song cycle Sea Pictures by Elgar - premiered in 1899 at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival with Elgar as conductor. Our mezzo-soprano for the five songs will be Maria Willis, who is originally from Norfolk and is currently studying at the Royal College of Music in London. Maria graduated with a first class music degree from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, receiving an award for the vocal department. Passionate about opera, she has performed in a variety of roles throughout her studies, including Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel) and Dido (Dido and Aeneas) for Waterperry Opera Festival in 2021.
In the second half of the programme we come back to East Anglia with Four Sea Interludes and the Passacaglia from Benjamin Britten's dramatic opera ‘Peter Grimes’. Originally written as scene changes during the opera, the four interludes are commonly performed as an orchestral suite, evoking the various moods of the sea.
The triumphant finale will be the rousing Henry Wood's "Fantasia on British Sea Songs" well known to all Prom-goers, which describes the progress of the battle of Trafalgar as seen by a British sailor.
Tickets are available online via links on Facebook and our website, and directly at www.trybooking.com/uk/eventlist/wso. Prices are £15, Friends of the WSO £13 and Under 18s are free. There will also be some tickets available on the door, payable by cash, cheque, or contactless card.
More details about the orchestra can be found at www.wymondhamsymphonyorchestra.org.uk or on our Facebook page.
