Welcome to St Paul's Sinfonia's website!
St Paul's Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra based in Deptford, near London Bridge. It has been performing high-class orchestral concerts at the beautiful old church of St Paul in Deptford since 2004, and in October 2008, the orchestra will enter its fifth season of concerts. Over the years, the concerts have ranged widely in repertoire, from large-scale Romantic symphonies to smaller Baroque masterpieces, and from some of the earliest music for chamber orchestra to brand-new works completed only days before the performance.
This season promises to be the most exciting and fulfilling one yet for the orchestra. The overarching focus to the 2008-9 season is the orchestra’s first Beethoven symphony cycle, including our first concert not at St Paul’s Church as we tackle the mighty 9th Symphony in collaboration with Blackheath Choir. Over its first four seasons, the orchestra has performed Beethoven’s first eight symphonies, and so it seemed only right to mark our fifth season with a completed cycle!
Continuing the orchestra’s strong commitment to contemporary music, this season we are appointing our first Composer in Residence. William Attwood, who grew up in Greenwich and now lives in Deptford itself, is already a rising star both in Britain and abroad, and his work with the orchestra (including a brand-new concerto for our principal double bass, Anthony Williams) will be both stimulating and fulfilling for both sides!
Our programmes would not be complete without highlighting the virtuosity and soloistic bravura of the players themselves. In addition to the double bass concerto that we are commissioning from William Attwood, two of our viola players (Andrew Thorn and Neil Valentine) will be performing concertos with the orchestra; Uchenna Ngwe, the Sinfonia’s co-principal oboist, will be performing the concerto by Gordon Jacob; and in December 2008 we also welcome the stunningly talented young violinist Julia Hwang to play Mozart’s violin concerto no. 3 with the orchestra.
We look forward to welcoming you to our concerts from October 2008 – a fantastic fifth season that holds rich rewards for performers and listeners alike!