Alison Bellerby
Author's posts
Celebrations for Symphony Orchestra
May 2012 – Lynn Carter reviews SASO’s 80th birthday concert for the Herts Advertiser “The concert was especially poignant as the musicians celebrated their legacy of 80 years of performances… drawing an incredible audience of over 300 people – their largest audience to date in St Saviour’s Church “The programme opened with Sibelius’ canonic work …
SASO celebrates 80 years of music-making with top-ten classics
St Albans Symphony Orchestra is to celebrate its 80th anniversary by performing two of Britain’s best-loved classics: Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and the Pastoral Symphony by Beethoven (7.30pm, Saturday 28th April, St Saviour’s Church, Sandpit Lane, St Albans). The young Russian-born virtuoso Alissa Firsova will be the soloist in the Rachmaninov work, which was this month voted the number one spot in Classic FM’s ‘Hall …
St Albans and Watford forces combine to perform Verdi’s searing Requiem
The musical forces of St Albans Symphony Orchestra and the Watford Philharmonic Society join together this month to perform Verdi’s blazing Requiem –the most famously spine-tingling of all settings of the Latin funeral mass (7.30pm, St Albans Abbey, Saturday March 10th) The great Italian composer, although agnostic himself, vividly depicts the desperate pleas of mankind …
New Years Day Concert Review
January 2011 ~ John Manning writes in the Herts Advertiser
EVEN though Ellie Fagg has been one of the most popular young local musicians for many years her performance with St Albans Symphony Orchestra at its traditional New Year’s Day concert was her first appearance at St Albans Abbey.
Donors invited to bang the drum for SASO
Conductor Bjorn Bantock (with SASO percussioni Kieran McGuirk) needs a bigger drum to bash. St Albans Symphony Orchestra is promising music lovers plenty of boom for their bucks if they contribute to a campaign to raise up to £1,500 to buy a big bass drum and other percussion instruments. Those who give especially generously will …
Symphony orchestra’s full-scale success
March 2011 – John Manning writes in the Herts Advertiser
If the size of the audience was anything to go by St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s concert on Saturday must have been its most successful in years. And the overall high standard of the performances ensured that those who packed into St Saviour’s Church for the evening were not disappointed.
ORCHESTRA RAISES RECORD SUMS FOR CHARITY
As published in the letters column of the Herts Advertiser: Dear Editor We would like to thank warmly, through your columns, everyone who contributed so generously to three different Christmas and New Year charity collections involving St Albans Symphony Orchestra. Altogether the good people of Hertfordshire have helped us raise nearly £4,000 for charitable causes. …
Dear Santa…. please bring Bjorn a groovy güiro!
Urgent message for Santa: aftershave and novelty socks won’t do for conductor Bjorn Bantock as he prepares to conduct his first New Year’s Day concert in St Albans Abbey. What he really needs for Christmas is a hollowed-out gourd with holes and grooves cut into it. Known in Spanish as a güiro, the gourd is …
Anything but a quiet life…
Bjorn Bantock, SASO’s new conductor, looks forward to the orchestra’s 2010-11 season Despite an increasingly successful international career, Bjorn Bantock, who has been appointed Principal Conductor of the St Albans Symphony Orchestra (SASO) for its new season, jumped at the opportunity to take up the baton in the city he has chosen to make home: …
Conductor James Ross to leave SASO after nine years of achievement
Conductor James Ross, who has led St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s to new heights of achievement is to leave the orchestra when its season ends in July. After nine years at the helm, he has decided it is time to take up new challenges, including a growing volume of international work with professional orchestras around the …
