This is an edited version of the Havant Orchestras newsletter which is provided in printed form (or e-mailed in PDF format, if requested) to players and Friends of the Orchestras.

From the Chairman …

Those of us who were at Oaklands School for our rescheduled Symphony Orchestra concert had a very enjoyable evening.  Probably programming Coates ‘Summer Days’ in the middle of winter was asking for snow and ice but we managed to collect together the players for the new date and thanks to our Administrator Sandra and Tickets Officer, Margaret we contacted everyone who had bought a ticket. The excellent acoustics, spacious stage and perfect sightlines reminded us what a good hall this is for music and we are looking at ways of returning there for further concerts.

Viv McLean made a great impression when he played Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto two years ago and now we welcome him back to join the Chamber Orchestra in Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto as part of a delightful programme.  We are most grateful to the Friends of the Havant Orchestras for their generous financial support of this concert and I look forward to meeting many of the Friends in the interval of the concert.

As everyone knows, costs are constantly rising and in order to maintain and enhance our ‘musical offering’ we need to raise ever more money.  This is why the contribution of the Friends is so important.

The Gold Fund, in preparation for our 50th Anniversary Season, is accumulating and I have decided to make my contribution by inviting sponsorship as I walk 1,000 miles in 2011 on my wildlife excursions – not including walking to the shops or committee meetings!  Already pledges amount to over £300 and I’d be happy to receive more. Sponsorship forms will be available at the concert on the Friends’ Table in the Meon Room.  You can also contact me personally in the usual ways – email preferred. Progress of my walking achievement and your sponsorship pledges will be announced concert by concert.

Other forms of help are also needed.  Volunteers undertake so many tasks for the benefit of the Society but we still need more.  The sale of CDs, music and books has been a popular feature of the concerts and has raised a considerable sum for the Orchestras.  Peter would like to hand this activity on so are you the person to take over?  There are many other ways you can help – could you give someone a lift to concerts for example?  I’m sure you have your own ideas of ways to help so please get in touch.

I look forward to seeing you at the concert and to hearing your opinions afterwards.

Tony Gutteridge
(023 9247 4681 or acg@waitrose.com)

Saturday’s timetable …

Notes from the Conductor …

You may not have encountered the Bohemian composer Voříšek before.  He scarcely had time in his lamentably short life to make his mark as a composer but the small amount of works he did produce reflected a hand of quality and originality.  He seemed destined for the highest artistic acclaim.  Like Mozart he toured as a child-prodigy pianist, playing that Master’s piano concertos and his own early compositions and frequently demonstrating his skill in improvisation.

Having tasted success in Mozart-dominated Prague he later moved to Vienna where Beethoven was King.  He remained there for the rest of his life and  was befriended and admired by luminaries including Beethoven himself, Spohr, Hummel, Moscheles and Schubert.

Voříšek’s only symphony dates from 1823, two years before his death and, whilst the influence of  his great idol Beethoven can be discerned in the outer movements especially, there are other resonances that point to Haydn and Schubert and visionary passages that lead onwards to Dvořák, Chopin and Brahms.  Have your handkerchiefs at the ready during the extraordinarily expressive slow movement – music of great beauty and haunting nostalgia.

This will be our fourth performance of the symphony since 1980 when we introduced the work to our audience for the first time.  It comes up just as fresh as ever and new delights continue to be unearthed within its masterly pages.  You may gather I like it!

If Voříšek constitutes the serious element in Saturday’s programme, the other three works exude fun characteristics.  Rossini’s comic opera warranted and received an overture that abounds in high spirits even though no themes are drawn directly from the opera’s music and the mood is well-established before the opening curtain.  Very much wake-up music!

Purcell’s longish French Overture and set of short dances that constitutes his suite ‘The Married Beau’ exploits mock-serious and knockabout themes in a pot-pourri of high jinks, post-Restoration style.  Where, you may ask, is the humour in Beethoven’s second piano concerto?  Try focussing on the dancing opening movement and the wicked Finale.  The profound, ornately decorated central Adagio is in its own completely different world.

After his highly impressive debut with us in May, 2007, playing the ‘Emperor’, it is a pleasure to welcome Viv McLean back in another Beethoven oeuvre – this least-performed 2nd Concerto.

For once, assembling the orchestra for Saturday’s concert has proved less problematic than some recent ones and all the players are drawn from the list in your programme.  Looking ahead to the May concert – there will be an augmented string section of 31 players in order to cope with the exigencies of Ravel, Falla and, above all, Viennese King Beethoven.  (But in the meantime, don’t miss HSO’s March date.)

Peter Craddock

Pre-Concert Interlude in the Octagon Lounge

We have a problem for Saturday – too many other musical events and no young people available at present.  If we locate an ensemble details will be in the foyer.

If you know of musical students who would enjoy playing before this or any other concert AND having free tickets for the performance for themselves and family members, please contact Sandra urgently!

UPBEAT CLUB!

Hello all Young Concert Attenders!

Saturday’s pre-concert talk will be all about the string instruments of the orchestra so please come to the Meon Room at 6.30pm and if you are a string player, please bring it with you (but we won’t have room for double basses unfortunately).

It’s going to be an exciting time as I’m planning to have a photo session as well so please look your best!  Please tell your parents/guardians about this as the photos will be used (if I can take some really good ones) …

to launch our NEW UPBEAT CLUB website

… and they must give me permission to take the photos and to use them as well.  If they would like more information about this exciting development, please ask them to contact me by mobile: 07966 216 887 or e-mail: becky.hill@rocketmail.com.

I’m looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday and telling you about strings and the website.

Becky Hill

Book this date now!

The Friends’ Garden Party In Fareham
Sunday 12 June, 3.00 – 5.00

Bring and Buy  Raffle  Tea and Cakes
Serenades by the Cool Classics Quintet

EVERYONE WELCOME
and definitely NOT to be missed!

More details in the March Newsletter Tickets at Ferneham Hall on 26 March

Request No 1

Please re-cycle your tidy A4-size envelopes by leaving them at the table in the foyer on Saturday.  They will be re-used to deliver the concert posters to the locations where they are displayed to encourage more people to come and hear HSO and HCO.  Thank you.

Request No 2

Do you know places (shops, offices, etc) that display posters near you?  Please take them copies for the March concert from the table in the foyer.  Many thanks

CDs FOR SALE

on Saturday

Plus SHEET MUSIC, OPERA VIDEOS, BOOKS and MINIATURE SCORES

Browse before the concert, during the interval and afterwards as well in the Meon Room!

10% of Sale Price to Orchestra Funds!

This concert’s CD Choices

Sourced by GE

Rossini  Overture Italian Girl in Algiers
Zagreb Festival Orchestra / Michael Halasz
c/w other Overtures
Naxos 8.550236   Bargain price

Purcell / Holst  Suite ‘The Married Beau’
The Parley of Instruments
c/w Purcell’s complete Airs for the Theatre
Hyperion CDA 67001/3   3-disc set  Full price

Beethoven  Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat
François-Frédéric Guy / Radio France PO / Philippe Jordan
c/w Piano Concerto No 3
Naive V5179   Full price

Voříšek  Symphony in D
Scottish CO / Mackerras
c/w Arriaga Symphony
Hyperion CDA 66800   Full price

Looking Ahead to … 2011-2012

Book the dates NOW for our GOLD SEASON CONCERTS

Saturday  24 September 2011  HSO

Saturday  15 October 2011  HCO

Saturday  3 December 2011  HSO

Saturday  11 February 2012  HCO

Saturday  24 March 2012  HSO

Saturday  19 May 2012  HCO

Saturday  7 July 2012  HSO

Venues for all the concerts plus all the booking and programme details will be announced at HCO’s next concert – on Saturday 14 May.

THE GOLD FUND… 2011-2012

This special project was launched at the AGM.

The challenge is not to give cash but to raise it by any (legal) means you can devise.

By the end of the AGM evening four projects had already been proposed and one is already operating.  Another has been added recently and details of this are in the Chairman’s notes above.

If you would like to join in, you could:

  organise a concert (by orchestra members?);

  hold a table-top sale;

  have a coffee morning;

  make craft items – the list is endless!

Please pick up a leaflet** on Saturday and then let Sandra (023 9248 3228) know what you are planning and details can be included in the next Newsletter.  Many thanks.

** Although the Gold Fund is completely separate from the Friends activities, the leaflets will be on The Friends Table in the Meon Room where Geoff Porter will be waiting to meet you.

He has recently joined the Society’s Committee in his role as Friends’ Secretary and would like to get to know all our supporters - Season Ticket Holders, non-STHs, Friends, musicians – and any other classical music-lovers whose category isn’t defined here!  We hope he’ll be inundated with visitors.

Some Former Bursary Holders

Mark Wigglesworth (1988-90)  is conducting eight performances of Parsifal for ENO at The Coliseum between 16 February and 12 March.

Leo Hussain (2002-3)  is conducting 10 performances of Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ also for ENO at The Coliseum between 19 May and 25 June.

Details for both productions at: www.eno.org or phone 020 7845 9420

Jason Lai (1998-9)  worked with Aldeburgh Young Musicians on a ‘Let’s Make an Opera’ project with composer Anna Meredith in October.

Toby Purser (2000-1)  sent this message recently: “I’ve spent the last two weeks in prison – rehearsing the women inmates of HMP Send for six performances of ‘Sugar’ (based on Some Like It Hot) with Pimlico Opera.  It’s already sounding brilliant, and I can’t recommend the experience enough.  Then on March 24th I’m conducting the Orion Symphony Orchestra at Cadogan Hall, London for a Stravinsky Premiere – a long-lost orchestration of the Song of the Volga Boatmen’; plus Elgar Cello Concerto with Guy Johnston; Britten Four Sea Interludes; Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances.”

Sarah Ioannides (1994-5)  is married to the Trombone Professor at Yale University; has a two-year-old daughter and twins born last April.  She is also Music Director of El Paso SO and Spartanburg PO in addition to appearing as Guest Conductor with several other orchestras!

Other Musical Offerings

New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth – Music in the Round

Friday 18 February, 7.30
Danish Quartet
MOZART Quartet in C, K 465 ‘Dissonance’
NIELSEN Quartet in G minor, Op 13
BEETHOVEN Quartet in E-flat, Op 127

and

Saturday 19 March, 7.30
I Fagiolini
Monteverdi to Lennon/McCartney

Tickets  £14, £11.50 concs; from: 023 9264 9000

Saturday 26 February 7.30
Michael Nott Rotunda, Portsmouth G S –
Portsmouth Music Club
Kaleidoscope Palm Court Trio
Tickets:  Visitors £6.00 at the door

Sunday 27 February 2.00 for 2.30
Oxmarket Centre for the Arts, Chichester –
Music on Sundays
Yuri Paterson-Olenich, piano
SCHUBERT  Moments Musicaux Op 94
GRANADOS  3 Danzas Españolas
Stephanie CANT  Scattering Landscapes
MEDTNER  Forgotten Melodies Op 38
Tickets:  £8.00 at the door

Saturday 20 March 7.30
St Mary’s Church, Fratton Road, Portsmouth
Portsmouth Choral Union
BRAHMS’ Requiem, Mendelssohn, Elgar & Bairstow
Tickets  £12 with concs from 023 9282 2227

THURSDAY 31 March 7.30
Stansted House, Rowland's Castle
Becky Hill’s Nadina String Quartet
Haydn plus …
Tickets  £7.50 from 023 9241 2265

Saturday 9 April 7.30
Holy Trinity Church, Fareham
Fareham Philharmonic Choir
MOZART  Requiem and Exsultate
VIVALDI  Gloria
Tickets  £11.00 (conc £9.50) children £2.00 from FPC Box Office 01329-664948 and at the door

STOP PRESS –

ONLY BOOKED YESTERDAY!!!

FRIDAY 10 JUNE 7.00pm

HAYLING ISLAND COMMUNITY CENTRE

AN EVENING WITH

HAVANT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

DETAILS TO BE FINALISED

ALL WILL BE REVEALED IN THE NEXT NEWSLETTER

Society Contact Details are at the back of the current Programme Book.

Contact information can also be found on the Contacts page within this web site.