The St Albans Symphony Orchestra (SASO) marks its 90th anniversary with a concert in St Saviour’s Church, Sandpit Lane, St Albans AL1 4DF on Saturday 2nd July at 7.30p.m.
The concert is dedicated to the memory of our wonderful Principal Conductor, Tom Hammond, who died suddenly in December 2021.
We will play –
- Gustav Holst’s The Perfect Fool ballet music. The Perfect Fool is a one-act opera, a parody of more serious operatic works (by Verdi, Wagner and Debussy).
- We welcome back violinist David Le Page, to perform American composer Samuel Barber’s dazzling Violin Concerto.
- Jean Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela – Sibelius was one of Tom’s favourite composers.
- We anticipate the USA’s Independence Day with one of classical music’s best loved works, Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No.9 From the New World.
As the St Albans Orchestral Society, SASO performed the Dvořák symphony at its first concert in 1932. The orchestra is planning further anniversary celebrations in October with the première of Heartwood Wilding a work commissioned from composer James Francis Brown inspired by the ‘wilding’ of Heartwood Forest, near St Albans.
Tickets for Saturday 2nd July are priced at £18 (nave), £13 (aisle), £5 students, £2 accompanied children, and are available from ticketsource.co.uk, or email tickets@saso.org.uk, or call 01525 862097 or 07976 800445.