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 …

The Chamber Orchestra is offering a really attractive programme and we are very pleased to welcome a local soloist who has an international reputation.  Usually I only play with the Symphony Orchestra and enjoy the Chamber Orchestra’s concerts from the audience side but it will be a great joy to play this wonderful programme and please do encourage your friends to join us.

It is at this concert that we launch the brochure for next season – the 50th anniversary of the Symphony Orchestra and Peter’s 50th season as our conductor.  A number of the works were suggested by members of the orchestras, not necessarily because they will be playing in them but because they enjoy the music.  It is an exciting programme and I’m sure you will support such an important landmark in HSO’s development – ideally as a season ticket holder.  We have already received several generous donations towards the costs of the season but there is still time for you to make a contribution.

By the time you read this my Sponsored 1000 Walk for the Orchestras should have earned £250 from my kind sponsors.  If you have not yet signed up to support me, Geoff Porter will have the forms at the Friends’ Table in the Meon Room on Saturday.

I look forward to seeing you at the concert and please talk to me about our activities and to offer help which is always welcome!

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

Saturday 14 May – Music and Events

Notes from the Conductor …

As a pianist I always found Ravel’s Suite Le Tombeau de Couperin a bit of a handful with so many demands of precision dexterity – many at speed and such clearly articulated textures.  The composer’s own transformation to small orchestra format does not necessarily reduce the burden but adds further vexations in problems of textural and voicing balance between wind and strings and in presenting finely engineered link-ups throughout the orchestra.  If it all comes off, the result is delicious and fragrant and whilst avoiding a pure Couperin time-capsule – a certain degree of wistful nostalgia is evoked.  Composer’s often excessive metronome speeds (and those of conductors interpreting them) frequently come under fire, but I can promise you there will be no attempt on world record vitesse in Saturday’s performance.  There is quite enough danger to cope with without adding the peril of Ravel’s suggested speeds!  Our job will be to try and hide the myriad challenges in a relaxing play that we can all enjoy – players and audience alike.  We’ll leave the Bum of the Flightle Bee approach to virtuoso ensembles.

Falla’s magnificently nationalistic ‘Three-cornered Hat’ ballet rarely seems to get an airing in the concert hall these days – let alone on the stage.  The colourful suites which the composer drew from Acts I and II deserve to be better-known, and they can be enjoyed as pure music divorced from the plot.  Hearing such vibrant music makes one lament the fact that Falla’s output was so small despite his 70-year span.

Included amongst the exotic textures of the Act I dances is an important part for piano – often working in tandem with the harpist.  Playing this will be Ayumi Shirai, an advanced student of Peter Rhodes’ Music Department at South Downs College.

It is a real pleasure to welcome the man himself as our soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 19.  When I first heard Peter play at his SDC interview (Chopin’s B minor Sonata, I believe) I realised what a prodigious talent he had – a view consolidated at close quarters over the years as his colleague, listening to and even sharing the accompaniments for students’ recitals, including millions of bloody Hindemith sonatas.  Oddly this is Peter’s first appearance with us as soloist.  It will also be nice to link up with another SDC colleague, Terry Barfoot who will be giving the pre-concert talk on the Concerto – one we haven’t played before.

Periodically I invite the resident Bob Harding Bursary holder to conduct in an HCO concert.  This, despite the dubious experience of the very first such invitation in May 1996 when Haig Utidjian certainly made the most of his opportunity.  He conducted Mozart’s Symphony No 29 with all repeats, AND the repeats of all the other sections where they were unspecified – thus giving, in effect, two complete performances of the symphony!

I trust that on Saturday, Sam Draper will restrict himself to those repetitions asked for in Beethoven’s 8th Symphony!  Please give him a warm welcome. 

Peter Craddock

UPBEAT CLUB!  at 6.30

Hello all Young (and young-at-heart) Concert Attenders!

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the Upbeat Club meeting on Saturday in the Meon Room when we will be exploring graphic scores.

WHAT ARE THEY, YOU ASK????

It’s music that is written down using pictures for sounds and other notation.

You will have the chance to compose your own piece of music using a graphic score and, I hope we’ll have time, to play your pieces using different types of percussion.

Come and join me to make some  NOISE !!!!

Best wishes,

Becky Hill

Brochures for 2011-12 …

… are scheduled to be ready for Saturday.

Please make sure you collect your copy AND some for your friends.  Season Ticket booking forms will be enclosed with them and Margaret (Packe) will be waiting for your renewal and your friends’ new bookings as well!

CDs for Sale (1)

We still have a few copies of Viv McLean’s debut CD for sale (£10 each).  They will be on the Table in the Foyer on Saturday.

The live recording was made at the Wigmore Hall and the programme is:

Brahms – Two Rhapsodies, Op 79
Liszt – Six Consolations, S172
Schubert – Sonata in B flat, D960 and
Grieg – Arietta from the Lyric Pieces.

CDs for Sale (2)

plus SHEET MUSIC, BOOKS, MINIATURE SCORES and JEWELLERY

Browse in the Meon Room before the concert, at the interval and afterwards!

10% to Orchestra Funds

CD ideas for this concert

Sourced by GE

Ravel  Le Tombeau de Couperin
Royal Concertgebouw Orch / Haitink
c/w Rapsodie espagnole, Valse Nobles et Sentimentale, Ma Mere l’oye, La Valse, Bolero, etc
Philips Duo 438 745-2  2 mid-price discs

Falla  Three-cornered Hat, Part 1
Philharmonia / Giulini
c/w El Amor Brujo, Concerto for harpsichord & 5 instruments, etc.
EMI Classics 50999 237 595627  2 budget-price discs

Mozart  Piano Concerto No 19, K 459
Brendel / Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Marriner
c/w Nos 20, 21, 23, 24  etc
Philips Duo 442 269-2  2 mid-price discs

Beethoven  Symphony No 8
LSO / Haitink
c/w other Symphony No 4
LSO Live LSO 0087  mid price

Concertos galore-rious!

An extravaganza with Havant’s (Symphony Orchestra) ALL STARS

Rachmaninov, Mozart, Lalo, Mendelssohn, to name but a few …

with … viola   clarinet   french horn   piano   cello   violin   basset horn

Friday 10 June
7.00 - 9.30 pm

HAYLING ISLAND COMMUNITY CENTRE
THE PARK, STATION ROAD
HAYLING ISLAND

Tickets:

SEASON TICKET HOLDERS & ORCHS’ FRIENDS - £4.00;

OTHERS - £5.00  except …..Under 18s - just £1.00

On sale on SATURDAY at the Table in the Foyer and at the Community Centre from Monday and at the door.

Adverts in our Programme

The Orchestras’ Programme Book has a long ‘life’ – from October to July so an advert is a worthwhile investment and the cost is very reasonable.

If: you have a business that would benefit from exposure in our Programme Book

or: you would like to help the Society by approaching possible advertisers, please contact Tony or Sandra soon.  Thanks.

A big ‘thank you’ …

… to the kind supporters who replenished the Poster-distribution Section’s envelope stock.  We have sufficient for the time being so please watch for another request – and hold on to your spares until then!

Friends’ Garden Party

IMPORTANT CHANGE - PLEASE TAKE NOTE

THE FRIENDS’ GARDEN PARTY in Fareham WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON SUNDAY 19 JUNE , 3.00pm

TICKETS AT THE FRIENDS’ TABLE in FERNEHAM HALL on SATURDAY

Music, Teas, Cakes, Bring & Buy, Raffle, Conversation, Plants, etc ….

Just hope the sun shines!

Flute It!

Members of a new Flute Choir which meets in Portsmouth on Thursdays from 7.30–9.00pm invites flautists of all ages and abilities to join them.  No auditions just a weekly subscription.  See their website: www.fluteit.co.uk and/or email: s.thornton@ntlworld.co.uk for further details.

Other Musical Events

Saturday 21 May, 7.30pm
The Concert Room, 2, Sudley Road, Bognor
Bognor Regis Music Club
The Finzi Quartet

Haydn  Quartet in C major, Op 20 No 2
Beethoven  Quartet Op 95 ‘Serioso’

Tickets £9.00 01243 773276 & at the door

Thursday 2 June, 1.00pm
St Mary’s Church, PORTCHESTER CASTLE,
Recital by Nell Hall Wycherley, soprano and Karen Kingsley, piano

The inaugural recital in a series of lunchtime performances including Rob Blanken later in the series.

Lunch available in the Tea Room.  Retiring collection.

Saturday 11 June, 7.30pm
Church of the Resurrection, Penryn Avenue Drayton
Portsmouth Phiharmonia and
NAS Nieuwegeins Symfonieorckest

Overture Le Bandit  Johan van Bree
Pavane  Fauré
Symphony in D minor  César Franck

Tickets £5; conc £4; child £1 from 01489 578373

Saturday 25 June, 7.30pm
United Reformed Church, Hayling Island
Cantemus 25th Anniversary Concert

Vivaldi ‘Gloria’
Haydn  ‘Little Organ Mass’
Handel  ‘Zadok the Priest’
Purcell  ‘Rejoice in the Lord Alway’

Tickets £8, from URC Hayling, Bridget: 023 9246 3531 and at the door.

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.