Alison Bellerby
Author's posts
SASO celebrates New Year with music from the movies
James Bond, The Little Mermaid, Superman and the Pirates of the Caribbean will be helping St Albans Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the start of 2014 with a musical trip to the movies. The orchestra’s traditional New Years Day family concert in St Albans Abbey (7pm, Wednesday January 1st) is dedicated to favourite film scores, including music from blockbusters such as …
Musical mayhem for kids at SASO’s children’s concerts
Noisy kids can look forward to fancy dress and musical mayhem on Sunday November 17th at St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s two annual concerts for children (2pm & 3.30pm, St Saviour’s Church, Sandpit Lane, St Albans). Children are invited to dress up as their favourite superhero, monster, or fairytale character for Red Riding Hood and the Three …
Choirs join forces with SASO for Brahms Requiem
Three choirs and two internationally-acclaimed soloists will join forces with SASO on Saturday 26th October to perform the German Requiem by Johannes Brahms – a heartfelt setting of biblical texts about death by a composer who was an avowed religious sceptic. (7.30pm, St Albans Cathedral). The concert is the latest in a biennial series organised by the …
Workshop tackles the mighty ‘Leningrad’ Symphony
St Albans Symphony Orchestra has successfully brought together more than 90 musicians to take part in an epic musical commemoration of the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The weekend workshop sessions at Townsend Church of England School in St Albans were used to tackle the ‘Leningrad’ Symphony by Dmitri …
Festival Concert ‘a tour de force’, says critic
SASO’s Festival Concert featuring Holst’s Planets Suite and soloist Giovanni Re in Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto was “a real tour de force” according to John Manning, music critic of the Herts Advertiser. Writing in the 13th June 2013 edition he says: “I can’t think of a performance I have heard in the past where the opening movement, …
‘A real tour de force’
SASO’s Festival Concert was by turns ‘powerful’ and ‘stunning’, says Herts Advertiser critic, John Manning There was something rather special about St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Gustav Holst’s popular Planets Suite on Saturday night. It felt as though the work could have been written for St Albans Abbey with its huge reverberation time. I can’t …
SASO’s summer concert sets course for ‘The Planets’
Almost a century after its was written, St Albans Abbey will reverberate to the sounds of Gustav Holst’s celestial Planets suite, performed by St Albans Symphony Orchestra as part of its yearly festival concert on Saturday 8th June (7.30pm). From the terrifying power of ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ to the ethereal quiet of distant ‘Neptune’ – complete …
SASO to launch Summer Music festival
St Albans Symphony Orchestra is to perform the opening concert for St Albans Summer Music: a month-long series of classical concerts, folk music and dance events. The programme under Principal Conductor Bjorn Bantock is on Saturday 8th June (7.30pm) in St Albans Abbey. It features The Planets, Gustav Holst’s hugely popular suite ‘for large orchestra’. The orchestra …
SASO “in Seventh Heaven,” says critic
The Herts Advertiser was full of praise for SASO’s ‘Beethoven’s Seventh’ concert on April 27th: “St Albans Symphony Orchestra continued their progression through the symphonies of Beethoven in their concert last night at St. Saviour’s with an energetic performance of his Seventh…. ….an uplifting interpretation of the work, and one that makes this reviewer eagerly look …
Orchestra in Seventh Heaven
Andrew Shepstone reviewed SASO’s ‘Beethoven’s Seventh’ concert for the Herts Advertiser. St Albans Symphony Orchestra continued their progression through the symphonies of Beethoven in their concert last night at St. Saviour’s with an energetic performance of his Seventh, The players responded keenly to the fast tempi given by their conductor Bjorn Bantock, and produced fine …
