OUR CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMNIST LIZ LEATHERDALE, FOUNDER AND OWNER OF COLCHESTER CLASSICS, BRINGS YOU HER PICK OF JANUARY’S CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENTS IN, AND AROUND, COLCHESTER.
If one of your New Year resolutions was to join a choir, Clacton Choral Society has a taster session on 7 January where singers with some choral experience would be welcome.
Following the choir’s highly successful concert in December, accompanied by the Kingfisher Sinfonietta, its conductor Gilli Dulieu will whet your musical appetite for the choir’s next concert on 8 April with music by Alan Bullard (Wondrous Cross), Malcolm Williamson (Procession of Palms) and excerpts from J S Bach’s St John Passion.
To reserve your place the event at Christ Church URC, Carnarvon Road, Clacton, telephone 01255 424568
On the afternoon of Sunday 8 January, the Kingfisher Ensemble presents its first concert of 2017 at Lion Walk Church, Colchester with a charming programme of music by Grieg, Mendelssohn and Schumann.
Tickets are £12 and available on the door
Across the border there is a chance to hear music used in films and on TV, such as the themes from Lovejoy and Black Beauty (by Suffolk-based composer Denis King) and also Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto from the film Dangerous Moonlight. Chris Green conducts the Trianon Choir and Symphony Orchestra at the Ipswich Corn Exchange at 7.30pm on Saturday 7 January 2017.
(01394 283170)
On Thursday the 10 January, Chris Green will be in Colchester starting a new series of Music Appreciation Lectures: Music and the British Landscape for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) based at the Castle Methodist Church.
(01223 417320)
Colchester-based musicians will also be with the Essex Chamber Orchestra the weekend of 7 & 8 January for an intensive weekend course ending with a concert including Reinecke’s Flute Concerto with soloist Hazel Arnill and Schubert’s Symphony No.3 at 7pm on Sunday 8 January in Ingatestone & Fryerning Community Centre, High Street, Ingatestone.
Tickets £10 on the door.
Get your New Year off to a flying start with a concert of popular Viennese classics given by the Colchester Symphony Orchestra conducted by Chris Phelps. Come and enjoy dance favourites including Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz, Thunder and Lightning Polka, the Radetsky March (with audience participation) and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.
The Viennese waltz is demanding for both musicians and dancers so were interspersed with short polkas and marches just to give the dancers a welcome break and catch their breath. (Those watching BBC One’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ will appreciate that the Viennese waltz is quite fast!)
Tickets are £14 (01206 271128). Saturday 14 January at 7:30pm in St Botolph’s Church, Colchester.
This month the Bergen Philharmonic makes its Saffron Hall debut with its new maestro Edward Gardner. The programme includes Elgar’s iconic ‘Cello Concerto, performed by the young ‘cellist Leonard Elschenbroich, Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No.1, evoking the landscape of Scandinavia and Bartok’s fiery orchestral showcase, Concerto for Orchestra. This concert is on Sunday 15 January at 3pm with tickets starting from £18.
Box Office 0845 548 7650.
On Sunday 15 January, Colchester Classics is delighted to be invited back to Saffron Hall to offer CDs at our pop-up CD stand. CDs at this concert will include performances by the Bergen Philharmonic and Edward Gardner. After the concert, Gardner will be available to meet the audience and sign the previously purchased recordings. Last month, Colchester Classics was delighted to offer a CD service and signing at Gerald Finley and Antonio Pappano’s recital.
Acclaimed as a pianist of “amazing power and panache” (The Telegraph), Clare Hammond, is recognised for the virtuosity and authority of her performances and has developed a “reputation for brilliantly imaginative concert programmes” (BBC Music Magazine, ‘Rising Star’). Recently she was playing on Radio 3 and also played the younger version of Dame Maggie Smith’s character in the film, The Lady in the Van.
On Sunday 22 January Clare will be performing these works at the Constable Hall, East Bergholt: – Jacquet de la Guerre’s Suite No 6 in G major, Beethoven’s Sonata No 4 in E-flat major, Ashton’s Ornithology, Faure’s Nocturnes Nos. 8 and 12 and Stravinsky’s Petrushka Suite.
Stour Valley Arts & Music Box Office and further information (01206 298426).
If you have a forthcoming concert of classical music, you would like previewed, contact Liz Leatherdale on 0800 999 6994.
Start your love affair with Classical Music at www.colchesterclassics.co.uk and take a minute to watch their company video:
Liz Leatherdale