Chichester Symphony Orchestra join the Festival of Chichester
The joy for tonight’s compere Kate Mosse is that it’s definitely a concert she would have gone to anyway.
“It's got classical music and Chichester Symphony Orchestra and female composers and Sussex composers and it's the Festival of Chichester... I would certainly have bought a ticket but now I actually can go along and be on the stage!”
The orchestra will be in St Paul’s, Chichester on July 13 at 7.30pm when they will be offering an exciting new format for their summer concert, which combines the best of British female composers in the first half with the familiar Last Night of the Proms sequence in the second.
Women composers are at last receiving the attention they deserve and CSO have selected three pieces which show off their romantic output. Ethyl Smyth wrote a dramatic overture for her opera The Wreckers which vividly depicts the adventures set against the backdrop of the Cornish coast. Rising clarinet soloist Alex Buckley will then join the orchestra for a pair of solo pieces, which demonstrate the lyrical and virtuosic abilities of the instrument. In the second half the orchestra brings the party atmosphere of the Royal Albert Hall with attractive character pieces by Mackenzie and Arnold followed by the classic sequence of Elgar, Parry and Henry Wood.
Kate is delighted to be presenting the night: “Classical music is something that I've always been interested in. I was lucky enough to go to Central School and to Chichester High where every student was given the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. I learned the violin and the viola and the piano, and classical music has always been part of my life in Chichester. I don't play now but I was really pleased to be approached by (orchestra chairman) Greg Slay who asked if I was interested in compering this concert. He said part of the programme is all music by women and the fact is that in the classical music world it has always been very difficult for female composers to get the attention and the recognition that they deserved. For a very long time women were not allowed in professional orchestras and if you were a female composer then if you were not performed you weren't published and if you weren't published you were not performed. There are many, many female composers that have never had anything like the recognition they should have done. But Greg also said that they would be playing some composers with a link to Sussex, and it's certainly a concert I would have gone to anyway.”
The programme will be Smyth – Overture: The Wreckers; Smith – Andante for clarinet and orchestra (soloist: Alex Buckley); Gipps – Clarinet Concerto (soloist: Alex Buckley); Mackenzie – Britannia: A Nautical Overture op 52; Arnold – Little Suite for orchestra; Wood – Fantasia on British Sea Songs; Elgar – Pomp and Circumstance march number 1; and Parry, arranged Elgar – Jerusalem.
Tickets from Festival of Chichester box office.