Category: latest-news

From Russian steppes to American cowboy country, the music chosen for St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s 2017-18 season travels from East to West and back again. The journey begins on Saturday 14 October with an all-Russian programme chosen by the St Cecilia Festival Society for its biennial concert in St Albans Cathedral when the orchestra teams-up …

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Emma Johnson – acclaimed as “Britain’s favourite clarinettist”* – will be the celebrity soloist with St Albans Symphony Orchestra for their end-of-season summer concert on Saturday 24 June (7.30pm St Saviour’s Church, Sandpit Lane, St Albans AL1 4DF). Emma, who gained international success after winning the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition in the …

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The internationally acclaimed pianist and composer Alissa Firsova will renew her partnership with SASO on Saturday 6 May, performing the Piano Concerto No 1 by Brahms

All sections excelled in a fine performance of Prokofiev’s rugged and technically demanding Fifth Symphony on Saturday 11 March. But it was  magnificent playing in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto by soloist David le Page that provided the evening’s crowning success, according to Herts Advertiser critic John Manning “His playing was warm and sonorous, yet fully charged with the …

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Two towering peaks of Russian music – a world-favourite violin concerto and one of the greatest 20th century symphonies – are being brought together for St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s concert on Saturday 11 March (7.30pm, St Saviour’s Church, Sandpit Lane, St Albans AL1 4DF). Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto  has delighted audiences for more than a century with its …

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Critic Geoff Ward, writing in the Herts Advertiser, says he has never heard SASO play better than on January 2nd  at its 2017 New Year Concert in St Albans Abbey. He  praises the “sparkling” performance of Richard Strauss’s  under the orchestra’s “dynamic and charismatic new conductor”, Tom Hammond. Leader Jenny Wigram is also singled out …

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St Albans Symphony Orchestra (SASO) is preparing to detonate a fizzing mixture of musical fireworks to welcome New Year on Monday January 2nd at the Abbey (7pm). The bank holiday date may be unusual – a consequence of New Year’s Day falling on a Sunday – but the programme will be packed as ever with …

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“New conductor Tom Hammond got St Albans Symphony Orchestra’s new season off to a fine start on Saturday (15 October) with a programme aimed to please,” says critic John Manning, writing in the Herts Advertiser. SASO’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ Sixth Symphony ‘gave full weight to the emotions of the work’ while Richard Strauss’s  Four Last Songs were  “exquisitely …

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Heavy demand for advance tickets mean that both SASO children’s concerts on Sunday November 6th have sold out. We look forward to seeing our capacity audiences on the day and apologise to anyone that was still hoping to buy tickets. Little monsters, princesses, superheroes and witches are invited to wear fancy dress for musical fun …

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