Saturday 26th October - St Nicholas Church, Warwick - 7.30 pm
&
Sunday 27th October - Leamington Town Hall - 3.00 pm
Programme

Arvo Párt    Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten

Britten        Suite on English Folk Tunes

Mozart       Violin Concerto No. 5
Soloist        Simon Smith

Párt            Fratres

Haydn         Symphony N. 100 'Military'

For tickets go to our contacts page.

October 2013 sees the start of the orchestra’s forty second season, its twentieth conducted by Nic Fallowfield, Music Director.

2013 also celebrates the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten. With this in mind, our first programme on 26th and 27th October begins with  the  tribute    “Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten” by Arvo Part.  Estonian composer Part greatly admired Britten’s work for possessing unusual purity. When Britten died, Part felt he had lost the opportunity of meeting a twentieth century composer whose approach, he believed, resembled his own.  The concert also includes Arvo Part’s “Fratres”  one of a dozen versions of this work for different ensembles.

Benjamin Britten’s “Suite on English Folk Tunes” is a set of five orchestral arrangements.  Written towards the end of his life it was premiered in 1975 at the Aldeburgh Festival.

Haydn’s  Symphony  no.100  “The Military” moves us back to the classical period.  It  takes its nickname from the bugle call  and timpani roll  in the second movement.

Simon Smith is soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto no.5.   Simon performs widely as both a soloist and chamber musician covering a broad repertoire  and  is also much in demand as a teacher. He plays a Rogeri violin made in 1708. 

Simon Smith - Violin

Simon Smith is active as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher.

As a soloist he has performed with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields throughout the USA, with the Philharmonia, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of St. John's Smith Square. He has given recitals in the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room in London as well as for Music Clubs and festivals throughout the UK.

Future projects include a number of recordings: Kurtag's "Signs Games and Messages" for solo violin; the 2nd Violin Concerto by Peter Racine Fricker and the Bartok Sonata for Solo Violin.

As a chamber musician Simon was a member of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Octet, performing in concert halls and broadcasts throughout the USA, and in Canada, Australia, Taiwan and Germany. He has recently performed in Russia and Kazakhstan for the first time. A CD of works by Kodaly and Dohnanyi, with Katherine Jenkinson, Paul Silverthorne and Clare Hayes will be released early in 2014.

Simon Smith is a visiting lecturer at the Birmingham Conservatoire. He has given numerous masterclasses, including at the Kazan Conservatory in Russia.

Future plans include teaching visits to Almaty Conservatory in Kazakhstan, Antwerp, Dublin, and Wells Cathedral School.

He has run regular courses for a number of years in the UK and next year will be a guest teacher on a course in Southern France, as well as on the Birmingham Conservatoire's Violin Course at Pro Corda.

Simon studied with David Martin and Frederick Grinke, and then with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School of Music, where he was awarded the Gold Medal. He received a DAAD scholarship to continue his studies in Germany with Wanda Wilkomirska. He plays on a Rogeri violin, made in 1708.

Simon is married to the violinist Clare Hayes, (a member of the Emperor String Quartet) and has three children. He collects classical LP's and vintage hifi, and is Chair of Governors at Little Munden School in Hertfordshire. 

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