Piece will be "four minutes 30 seconds of sheer unadulterated terror!"

The members of Sussex Symphony Orchestra insisted they wanted to be challenged. Their conductor Mark Andrew James has taken them absolutely at their word.

Their next concert will include John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

“The orchestra always says to give them something that they can really get their teeth into,” Mark says, “that's going to extend them and challenge them. So I have! This is four minutes 30 seconds of sheer unadulterated terror – or you could call it 188 bars of nightmare basically!

“It is very, very fast. With this I am not the most important person even though I'll be standing up waving my white stick! The most important person is one of the percussionists that plays a wood block like a metronome.

“The piece is so exciting. The story is that the piece was written after Adams was visiting a friend in Italy, and the friend had just bought an open-top sports car. The friend offered to take Adams for a ride and, excuse my French, frightened the **** out of him. It was a real white-knuckle ride. And he just thought ‘I think I can write a piece of music out of this’, and this is a result. It is absolutely fantastic.

“I was in the States when I first heard it. I walked past the concert hall and I saw that this was on and I liked the rest of the programme, and the moment I heard it I just thought ‘This has got me written all over it! This is something that we have to do!”

It now forms part of the concert entitled Fire, Fate & Renewal which the orchestra will be giving on Saturday, October 3 at 19:30 at All Saints Church, The Drive, Hove, BN3 3QE.

The programme also includes Dvorak – Symphony No 8; Berlioz – Carnival Romain Overture; and Wagner – Siegfried’s Death & Funeral Music. Tickets available on https://www.sussexsymphony.org/whats-on-new/fire-fate-renewal

The Dvorak is a particular favourite for Mark: “It is just beautiful. There is so much to it. The 9th has got the Hovis advert! Everybody knows it, and it can get a bit cliched but the 8th has got some fantastic tunes. There is one particular moment that just breaks your heart in the slow section. It's so beautiful, and I love it.”

Also coming up this season is Brahms Requiem on Sunday, November 1 at 18:00, this time from the Sussex Symphony Orchestra Chamber Orchestra, at Holy Trinity Church. Also coming up is the Christmas Concert on Saturday, December 19 at 15:00 at All Saints Church.