Leslie Olive introduces the year's concerts:

Leslie Olive introduces this music:

​

A BURY ST EDMUNDS FANFARE, A VISIONARY NEW COMMISSION, and ELGAR’S ENIGMA VARIATIONS

This concert is a real thrill for me. As well as helping to celebrate 1,000 years of the Abbey of St Edmund, it also marks the first ten years of Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra, and because of the repertoire I also have the opportunity to include my two voluntary choirs and individual singers from choirs across Suffolk.

"AS FAR APART AS POSSIBLE"

The concert opens with Benjamin Britten’s Fanfare for St Edmundsbury, written for Bury’s huge and spectacular 1959 Magna Carta Pageant and specified as being for three trumpets “as far apart as possible”! Actually, the rhythms of the three melodic strands are intricate, different, and tricky to co-ordinate even when the players are next to each other. We will experiment in rehearsal to see how close we can come to Britten's idea of antiphony between them.

​

PARRY'S CORONATION ANTHEM

After the fanfare, we have the great coronation anthem by Sir Hubert Parry, “I Was Glad when they said unto me” – on this, occasion, of course, without the coronation acclamations, but no less grand and magnificent for all that, with choirs, Suffolk’s Philhamonic Orchestra in all its glory, and the Cathedral’s mighty organ. 

​

​

BENEDICTINE RESONANCES

Newly commissioned for this concert celebrating 1,000 years since the founding of Bury’s Benedictine Abbey is a work for solo tenor, choir, and orchestra which sets texts with Benedictine resonances. Indeed, some of the words are from the Rule of St Benedict itself. The SPO welcomes one of the UK’s most distinguished lyrical tenors, James Gilchrist, to perform INTO THE LIGHT, commissioned at my recommendation from Paul Carr. I have been involved now with some half dozen new works by Paul, and when my suggestion of a commission to celebrate Abbey1000 was accepted by the Abbey1000 committee, I was delighted that Paul accepted the commission to set words suggested by Canon Matthew Vernon, Sub-Dean of our Cathedral. In my opinion, Paul Carr has excelled himself in this atmospheric work which I convinced you will love.

​

​

NIMROD

Which brings us to Elgar, who of course needs neither introduction nor explanation, except perhaps to those less familiar with the work that established reputation as a composer, that this is the suite of pieces that features "Nimrod" - rightly one of the most unmistakeable, memorable, moving, and profound musical utterances of any English composer. Or perhaps, come to think of it, any composer. Ever.

Leslie Olive introduces this music:

​

BASALT COLUMNS AND ATLANTIC SWELL

I confess I am in love with this all-Mendelssohn programme! I was once again on a boat standing off Fingal’s Cave on the southern cliff of the Scottish island of Staffa this last summer, and there is a particular feel and look to the ocean swell as it reached the Hebrides which Mendelssohn captures perfectly in his wonderful Hebrides Overture – also known as “Fingal’s Cave.” The music takes us on a journey through calm swells to something much more challenging and back again. At the end it seems as though we have sailed away, and the island disappears in the distance.

​

​

INTRODUCING CHARLOTTE

The wonderful young French violinist Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux plays the same composer’s Violin Concerto, surely one of the most extraordinary and compelling works in an extraordinary and compelling category of composition. Charlotte was a prize-winner at the 2021 International Auditions for the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT), with whom I and Suffolk Philharmonic have worked for many years as part of our commitment to providing opportunities for the most outstanding solo performers of the younger generation.

​

FROM SCOTTISH ISLANDS to ITALIAN SUNSHINE

Mendelssohn was a keen traveller, and his fourth and last symphony – the “Italian” – is just as genuinely coloured with the sunshine and swirling colours of Italian peasant dancing as the Hebrides Overture is redolent of sea spray and the crash of the waves on the basalt columns of Staffa. The movements are all glorious, from the sun-drenched opening, through the musical impression of a religious procession in Naples in the slow movement, and the fiery Saltarello and Tarantella dances of the finale – the Tarantella being the legendary frenzied dance in which a victim of a tarantula sting dances himself to death.

​

Come and enjoy this wonderful programme with the SPO In the numinous and inspiring surroundings of Ely Cathedral at the height of summer.

The Lark's Flight over Suffolk

Summer 2022

The Lark Ascending, by Ralph Vaughan Williams (RVW), is today one of the best-loved pieces of classical music in the UK. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the composer, Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra aims to bring this glorious music within reach of everyone in Suffolk.

"The Lark's Flight over Suffolk" tells the story of The Lark Ascending and of RVW's live, his triumphs and his disappointments, in music and words. The Lark Ascending features along with his Oboe Concerto and other captivating music by this outstanding and influential British composer. 

Launching at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds on Thursday 30th June 2022, "The Lark's Flight" then goes on tour to five further venues around the county of Suffolk. As well as RVW himself (played by an actor, of course), there will be a small orchestra of 14 musicians, and outstanding soloists.

"The Lark's Flight" is conceived and directed by conductor Leslie Olive.

PERFORMANCES

Bury St Edmunds, Theatre Royal
Thursday 30 June 7.30pm

Eye, Town Hall
Friday 1 July 7.30pm

Aldeburgh, Jubilee Hall
Sunday 3 July 4.00pm (time tbc)

Carlton Marshes, Visitor Centre
Suffolk Wildlife Trust
Friday 8 July 7.30pm

Felixstowe, St Andrew's Church
Saturday 9 July 7.30pm

Hadleigh, Church
Sunday 10 July 4.00pm (time tbc)