Northern Chamber Orchestra - Macclesfield 2017-2018 season brochure

M A C C L E S F I E L D H E R I TA G E C E N T R E C O N C E R T S

SEASON

BROCHURE 2017-2018

Celebrating 50 years of wonderful music making

Manchester Metropolitan University

NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Nicholas Ward, Artistic Director Macclesfield Concert Series Heritage Centre, Roe Street Macclesfield SK11 6UT Adjacent free parking All concerts start at 7.30pm

Bang your own drum

Become a Friend of the NCO: • Annual fee only £25 single membership / £40 joint membership CDL is a proud patron of the

• Attend special events and pre-concert talks • Join members of the orchestra and other Friends for a complimentary drink after concerts • £1 off all Macclesfield concert tickets and all NCO recordings • Attend fundraising events and outings

Call the office on 0161 247 2220 or email friends@ncorch.co.uk

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30 S AT U R DAY

Tracey Redfern trumpet

Jennifer Langridge cello

September

28 S AT U R DAY

Jess Gillam Saxophone

Nicholas Ward violin

October

Mozart Don Giovanni Overture Fauré Pavane Haydn Trumpet Concerto Fauré Elegy for Cello and Orchestra Beethoven Symphony No 1

CPE Bach Symphony in Eb Wq179 Mozart Violin Concerto No 4 in D Barber Adagio for Strings Dave Heath The Celtic Concerto Morricone Gabriel’s Oboe

We open our 50th anniversary season with a celebration of the musicians of the Northern Chamber Orchestra, without whose dedication and consummate talent we would not be where we are today. This collection of popular masterpieces opens with the overture to Mozart’s tragicomic opera, Don Giovanni, a piece that fizzes to life out of a rich and sombre opening. The two Fauré works, each characteristically haunting and beautiful, frame Haydn’s Trumpet concerto, played by our Principal, Tracey Redfern. The concert finishes with one of the great symphonies, Beethoven’s First, a vivid representation of the classical form very much in the mould of Haydn and Mozart and yet it is a work that bears the hallmarks of a young genius who is testing the boundaries and preparing the way for his truly groundbreaking symphonies that followed.

In our second concert of the season, we welcome Jess Gillam, a young saxophonist who, since finishing as runnerup in the 2016 BBC Young Musician of the Year, has a very bright future. In the words of Clemency Burton-Hill, Jess is a “Life affirming musician”. In this programme, she will play the Celtic Concerto, a piece that is becoming hugely popular owing to its both expressive and wildly exciting writing. After a perfect example of ‘Sturm und Drang’, in CPE Bach’s explosive E flat symphony that opens the evening, the first half also features a soloist who is somewhat better known to many of our audience, our Artistic and Musical Director, Nicholas Ward, who will be playing the effervescent and charming 4th violin concerto of Mozart. Completing the programme, is a string piece that is as emotive as it is popular, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the subject of a recent book by Thomas Larsen “The Saddest Music Ever Written.”

“Consistently stylish playing from the Northern Chamber Orchestra.”

Financial Times www.ncorch.co.uk | 0161 247 2220

“Jess Gillam is a true inspiration, she frankly rocks.”

Huffington Post

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09 S AT U R DAY

Elin Manahan Thomas soprano

December

Handel Rinaldo Overture Handel Gentle Morpheus Gluck Dance of the furies & Dance of the blessed spirits Rameau Tristes apprets Vivaldi In furore iustissimae Rameau Dardanus Chaconne Mozart Exsultate Jubilate Rameau Entrée de Polymnie Handel Da Tempeste Handel Lascia ch’io Piangia We are delighted to be welcoming Elin Manahan Thomas, a soprano who has a strong claim to be one of the finest of her generation. She has performed at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals, and with leading orchestras and conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Andrew Davis, Harry Christophers, Sir Roger Norrington and Vasily Petrenko. She is perhaps most well-known for her performances of baroque masterpieces - such as Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine, at the London 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony – and in this concert, Elin is presenting a mouth-watering programme sure to delight.

13

S AT U R DAY

Gwilym Simcock piano

January 2018

Tippett Sellinger’s Round Simcock Cumbrian Thaw for piano and strings Debussy/ Simcock Children’s Corner Haydn Symphony No 85 ‘La Reine’ Gwilym Simcock has carved out a career as one of the most gifted pianists and imaginative composers on the European scene. He moves effortlessly between jazz and classical music, with a harmonic sophistication and subtle dovetailing of musical traditions. Gwilym has been hailed as a pianist of exceptional, brilliant and dazzling ability, and his music has been widely acclaimed as engaging, exciting, often unexpected, melodically enthralling, complex yet hugely accessible, and above all wonderfully optimistic. We are therefore thrilled to be forging a relationship with such a megastar and in this concert will be joined in our soloist’s own Cumbrian Thaw, by young string players from Chetham’s School of Music, the centre for excellence that has produced so many of today’s musicians including Gwilym himself.

The second half begins with Gwilym’s own arrangement of Debussy’s famous collection of piano pieces and concludes with one of Haydn’s famous Paris symphonies.

“Meltingly expressive”

“Gwilym Simcock’s prodigious creations on the piano straddle the border between classical and jazz to mesmerising effect ... a stupendous improviser and a remarkable musician all round.”

Evening Standard

The Observer

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10

S AT U R DAY

Chloë Hanslip violin/director

February

Vivaldi The Four Seasons Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence In an exciting new venture for the NCO, Chloë Hanslip returns not only to play the solo part in Vivaldi’s famous set of concertos, but also to direct the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. The Seasons is a piece that could hold a valid claim to be the most popular classical work of all time. There have been at least 200 recordings made, it is a staple of any concert season and is played across digital media from mobile phones and shopping centres to telephone system hold music and TV adverts. Yet such is the evocative, charming and virtuosic brilliance of this work that it has survived all of this commercialisation without tarnish. In the second half, Chloë joins the orchestra as leader and director in the fabulous, high spirited romp of Souvenir de Florence, heard here in the arrangement for string orchestra.

“Hanslip plays with a mastery and profound insight that would grace many a great name of the past” Sinfinimusic.com www.ncorch.co.uk | 0161 247 2220

10

S AT U R DAY

Jennifer Pike violin

March

Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite Scriabin Andante and Scherzo for Strings Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Supported by Martin and Angela Losse

Making a very welcome return to Macclesfield is the prodigiously gifted violinist, Jennifer Pike, in a programme that explores three works of enormous popularity, each for very different reasons.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is perhaps the most instantly recognisable piece of music ever composed, but this does nothing to diminish its sheer brilliance as a composition. Another star in the pantheon of classical music is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, a work as virtuosic as it is passionate. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, a neo-classical masterpiece that explores material by Pergolesi, conjures images of the grotesque shapes and characters of the commedia dell’arte.

“Simply spectacular” The Independent

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14

S AT U R DAY

Martin Roscoe piano

April

James Manson new commission Brahms Piano Quartet in C Minor Op 60 Schubert Trout Quintet

12

S AT U R DAY

Raphael Wallfisch cello

May

Mozart Magic Flute Overture Elgar Cello Concerto Beethoven Symphony No 5

Supported by Geoff and Jennie Holman A feature of every season is the appearance of our principal players as the NCO Soloists and in this concert our leaders of the string sections are joined by Martin Roscoe, a wonderfully versatile musician who after a career spanning four decades, is one of the UK’s best-known pianists. In the first half of this concert, the players will be plunging headlong into a maelstrom of romanticism, in Brahms’ C minor piano quartet, a piece that the composer himself said referred to Goethe’s great novel Werther, the story of which relates the sorrows of a young man whose deep anguish over a married woman whose husband he admires leads to him taking his own life. The parallel with Brahms’ situation with regard to the Schumanns is obvious. The second half of the concert will be a much sunnier affair, with the gloriously carefree, beautifully crafted, Trout Quintet.

We are delighted that Jamie, our principal bass player and resident composer is producing a curtain-raiser for this concert.

Our 50th anniversary season finishes with a suitably celebratory concert, and perhaps our most ambitious programme ever at the Heritage Centre. Our President, internationally renowned cellist, Raphael Wallfisch, returns to play a piece made famous by the great Jacqueline Du Pré, Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Either side of this contemplative and elegiac masterpiece, are two of the most famous pieces in the repertoire; the overture to the Magic Flute, whose energy brings any audience instantly to life, and Beethoven’s great C minor Symphony, whose opening hammer blows of fate, the opening four notes which are as portentous as they are famous, lead us through what many regard to be the very apogee of western classical music. To experience the end of the symphony with the full orchestra including trumpets and trombones on stage at the Heritage Centre, will ensure that we end the season in suitably triumphant style.

…Roscoe is a pianist who both thinks and offers full-blooded playing of breadth and depth. In this country, he is an uncommon creature…”

“Wallfisch’s inspired, passionate performance really articulated the soul’s struggle… the results were passionately mesmerising…”

The Daily Telegraph

Planet Hugill

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POP IN FOR A WARM WELCOME!

Macclesfield Season Sponsor 2017 - 2018 Manchester Metropolitan University, Faculty of Education The Northern Chamber Orchestra (NCO) works in close collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Education, taking creative music initiatives into Northwest primary schools across Manchester and Cheshire.

As part of Manchester Met’s innovative STEAM initiative (incorporating Art and Design and Music into Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education), the NCO is developing projects that connect with STEM objectives, such as junk percussion workshops, exploring the science of sound.

Manchester Metropolitan University has been training teachers, practitioners and professionals for over 100 years and is instrumental in educating the region’s workforce.

The Faculty of Education has a partnership with over 1,300 schools, colleges and organisations covering a wide geographical area and diversity of social, economic and cultural backgrounds.

Each year nearly 3,000 undergraduates and postgraduates study full-time with us on over 70 Education-related courses, including PGCE Music and Specialist Instrumental Teaching.

Our award-winning Brooks building has specialist facilities, including a drama studio and performance space, music technology suite and practice rooms.

Many of the Faculty’s teaching staff are actively involved in research and our Education and Social Research Institute is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for applied research and evaluation with interests spanning early childhood, socio-technical changes, communication and social justice.

Supporting inclusion, educational aspirations and community engagement are central to the Faculty’s ethos and we are delighted to continue our partnership with the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

Porthaven care homes incorporate all the practical features, as well as comfort you could wish for, including spacious and beautifully designed bedrooms with private en suite wetrooms, smart dining rooms, hair salons, nail bars and secluded landscaped gardens. We offer 24-hour short and long-term nursing and residential care for the elderly, as well as those living with dementia.

VISIT PORTHAVEN.CO.UK TO FIND OUT MORE OR CALL YOUR NEAREST CARE HOME TODAY TO ARRANGE A VISIT PROUD SPONSOR OF THE NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA NURSING

RESIDENTIAL

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Astbury Mere Care Home Congleton TEL 01260 296772 Haddon Hall Care Home Buxton TEL 01298 600791 Prestbury House Care Home Macclesfield TEL 01625 506132

TICKET

information £20 auditorium (stalls) £15 balcony Under 18s and full time students FREE Registered disabled audience members can bring one carer free Ring for group discount rates

Call us on 0161 667 1482 to book your complimentary financial review Proud to sponsor The Northern Chamber Orchestra

Discounts for season and part-season tickets: Book for all 8 concerts and get one concert FREE Book 4-7 concerts and get £1 off each concert NCO Friends and Patrons get £1 off each concert Book your tickets online at www.ncorch.co.uk Or call the NCO box office: 0161 247 2220 A limited number of tickets will be available on the door

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Friday 8 December 8pm Start your Christmas with a visit to the magnificent Tatton Park in our now traditional Christmas concert, with a tour of the mansion, a glass of winter punch and a musical journey through the 12 days of Christmas with NCO and a guest choir.

Tickets: £25/U18s £15 - Discounts for group bookings Ticket price includes tour and warming winter drink.

Registered disabled audience members can bring one carer free Tickets available from the NCO Box Office: 0161 247 2220 or www.ncorch.co.uk And from Tatton: 01625 374435

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• Investment Planning • Pre & Post Retirement Planning • Inheritance Tax Planning • Personal & Business Protection • Mortgage Advice Call us to arrange your complimentary financial review0161 667 1482

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SAVE THE DATES MACCLESFIELD HERITAGE CENTRE CONCERTS ALL CONCERTS ARE ON SATURDAYS AT 7.30PM

30 September -Tracey Redfern, trumpet and Jennifer Langridge, cello

28 October - Jess Gillam, saxophone 9 December - Elin Manahan Thomas, soprano 13 January - Gwilym Simcock, piano 10 February - Chloë Hanslip, violin/director 10 March - Jennifer Pike, violin 14 April - Martin Roscoe, piano 12 May - Raphael Wallfisch, cello Thanks to our season sponsor: Faculty of Education Manchester Metropolitan University One of the UK’s leading internationally recognised centres for teacher training and professional development. www.mmu.ac.uk/education Our corporate patrons:

Thanks also to the Friends of NCO and all of our Patrons.

We are proud of the ongoing relationship between NCO and Chetham’s School of Music, and look forward to continuing our collaboration at The Stoller Hall – Manchester’s newest space for performance.

The NCO is a registered charity (no. 278912) and an incorporated company (no. 1430784) We welcome donations and bequests in support of our concert programmes, learning and development programmes and work with dementia care under the Mind Music banner.

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