Peace concert in Coventry with the English Symphony Orchestra

By Arthur Keegan-Bole, 21 November 2011

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Reviewed at Coventry Cathedral, Coventry on 12 November 2011

Pärt, Da pacem Domine

Mozart, Symphony no. 41 in C major, "Jupiter”, K551

Mozart, Mass no. 18 in C minor "Great", K427 (K417a)

Saint Michael's Singers

English Symphony Orchestra

Helen-Jane Howells, Soprano

Zoë Bonner, Soprano

Joseph Cornwell, Tenor

Roger Barlow, Bass

Paul Leddington Wright, Conductor

English Symphony Orchestra brings transparency to Strauss and Mahler

Simon Cummings, 2nd December

Kenneth Woods directs a compelling, revelatory concert featuring chamber versions of Strauss’ Four Last Songs and Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

****1

Philip Sawyers' powerful new symphony at SJSS

Gavin Dixon, 28th February

Philip Sawyers’ Third Symphony imposing but tightly argued, and given a compelling first performance by Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra.

****1

World première of Joubert's Jane Eyre

Pamela Nash, 25th October

John Joubert's opera setting of Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece received its long-awaited world premiere by the English Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kenneth Woods, with a luminous central performance by soprano April Fredrick.

*****

No fairies but lots of magic

Jane Shuttleworth, 12th February

A career woman, a femme fatale, a shop girl, an actor, a teacher, an idler, a biker, a priest, a bank clerk and five circus acrobats. These are not the figures that come to mind when we think of Purcell’s Fairy Queen.

****1

Chicago Symphony Orchestra music on death: whimper then bang

Graham Meyer, 9th April

Jakub Hrůša leads the CSO in pedestrian Janáček and Rachmaninov, but Strauss's Four Last Songs and Wagner's Tristan excerpts send audiences home deeply touched.

***11

Andris Nelsons and the BSO arrive in New York, with baggage in tow

Cameron Kelsall, 9th April

In his first New York appearance since the termination of his contract as BSO Music Director, Nelsons courts public sympathy and makes some thrilling music.

***11

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Arthur Keegan-Bole

Arthur is a composer currently focusing on opera. His desire to promote contemporary music led him to set up and co-edit The Octogenarian, a light-hearted classical music review pamphlet distributed in Bristol and to curate the annual CMV series of concerts.