The re-opening of the magnificent baroque church of St Paul in Deptford, after four years of extensive restoration, enabled St Paul's Sinfonia to launch its inaugural concert season in December 2004, bringing live high-quality classical music to the cultural scene of Lewisham and beyond.
In October 2011, St Paul's Sinfonia is going to be on the move! During our first seven seasons, we were privileged to be able to perform in the exquisite church of St Paul in Deptford, but this year we are, regretfully, saying goodbye to our former home, and moving on to pastures new.
Rest assured, however, that our concert programmes remain as creative and exciting as ever. The loose theme running through our 2011-12 season is 'a century of British music 1912-2012', tying in with the arrival of the Olympics in London in June 2012. The music of British composers governs many of the programmes: works by Finzi, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold and Britten come from the established repertoire of British music, and we also welcome works by expatriate composers who made their home in Britain, including Andrzej Panufnik and Elis Pekhonen (himself a pupil of Britten). From the present day, we present the Violin Concerto by Stuart Hancock (last season's Composer in Residence), performed by its dedicatee, Paul Barrett.
We are particularly delighted to be able to introduce our new Composer in Residence to you. Some of you may have heard Tim Jackson perform the virtuosic solo horn part of Matt Rogers's new horn concerto back in December 2009. Tim is also a wonderful composer, with the full panoply of musical talents at his disposal. We will be performing several of his works with the soloists for whom they were originally written, including Roger Montgomery (principal horn with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and Gabriella dall'Olio (soloist, and Professor of Harp at Trinity College of Music). We will also be giving the first performance of a brand-new work by Tim, commissioned especially for St Paul's Sinfonia, in our May concert.
In addition, you can also expect the eclectic mix of the old and the new, the well-known and the unfamiliar, the creative and inspiring programming on which St Paul's Sinfonia prides itself. Seventh symphonies feature strongly (by Dvořák, Haydn, Beethoven, and Sibelius); less familiar works by Schubert and Brahms; and we are thrilled to welcome back two of our very finest soloists, Julia Hwang (in April) and Irina Lyakhovskaya (performing Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 in June).
We look forward to welcoming you to our 2011-12 season - it will be the best one yet!