Havant Symphony Orchestra are looking forward to returning once again to Oaklands Catholic School to perform an exciting concert under their principal conductor Jonathan Butcher and student conductor Ignatius Wang.

Rossini’s Overture to ‘William Tell’ is famous for both the story of Swiss hero William Tell shooting an apple off his son’s head and for the use of the music for the ‘Lone Ranger’ TV series.  In fact, the ‘Lone Ranger’ tune, properly called ‘March of the Swiss Soldiers’, is just the last part of a work which features a beautiful melody for 5 solo cellos; a storm scene and a pastoral idyll led by the cor anglais.  Quite an adventure!

The violin concerto by Sibelius is one of the favourites of the repertoire – a virtuoso work of great passion set in Sibelius’ beloved chilly Nordic landscape.  It was the only full-scale concerto that he wrote.  It was initially premiered in 1904, but then revised by Sibelius and premiered in the new version in 1905.  We had asked Alexander Sitkovetsky to be our soloist, but Sasha subsequently won an award which means he needed to be elsewhere on the day, so he kindly arranged for international soloist Boris Brovtsyn to join us instead.

Brahms wrote his third Symphony in 1883 and it was well received at its premiere by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.  Brahms was by this time a 50-year-old bachelor, declaring himself to be ‘frei aber froh’ – ‘free but happy’ – and the F-A-F motif appears throughout the Symphony.  It’s the shortest of his four symphonies so the orchestra will play a bonus piece of Brahms – the Hungarian Dance No. 6.  Brahms wrote 21 Hungarian Dances altogether – originally for piano four-hands – and they have been arranged many times for various combinations of instruments including full orchestra.

** Note change of soloist as described above.