Registered Charity No 1100591
Not one, but TWO Chet’s soloists
Continuing our informal partnership with Chetham’s School of Music, we have this year invited cellist Oliver (Ollie) Farrant to be the soloist in our February 2012 concert. In a programme drawing largely on the earlier classical repertoire, Ollie will be playing Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major. We hope that having his head teacher, Stephen Threlfall, in charge – as our guest conductor – won’t be too off-putting for him! And hard on Ollie’s heels comes another Chet’s soloist: violinist Callum Smart is back in March, by popular demand, this time to delight us with Tchaikovsky’s passionate Violin Concerto. We’d hoped to space the lads out a little more across the season, but as they’re both taking their GCSE’s this coming year, a May concert was asking too much.
We are pleased to introduce to you Liz Barnes, who is going to be helping us out, in a voluntary capacity. Liz is about to begin her second year as an undergraduate at Liverpool University, studying for a joint degree in Music and Business, and aspires to a career in music/arts administration. As one of the LMO’s charitable objectives is “to encourage young musicians”, we are pleased to offer Liz the opportunity to see how a chamber orchestra ticks, and we feel sure she will be an asset to our administrative team. Look out for Liz on concert nights: she’ll be busy somewhere behind the scenes!
The orchestra was delighted to confer Life Membership on our erstwhile Honorary Secretary, John Cunnngham. For 17 years - yes,17 years! - John almost single handedly ran the LMO. A presentation attended by members of the orchestra was made at the home of our Chairman in December. In accepting, John commented: ‘I am very touched that my friends should think it appropriate to offer me Life Membership of the LMO … To be offered Life Membership is clearly a great honour and one that gives me much pleasure in accepting. As you know, for 20 years, the LMO was a very important and fulfilling part of my life that gave me a great deal of enjoyment and in which I took considerable pride - notwithstanding the occasional headache!’
The pride was entirely understandable - there was much of which to be proud over those years, not merely in the “big events” like the Simon Rattle concert, the operas in the park and so on but in the efficient and smooth running of the band year in, year out. A hard act to follow!
Mozart
Mesmer
er…Mozart
Simples!
Our concert on 31 March will be the last event at Pacific Road before its closure. The tender process for the sale of the whole Pacific Road complex is nearing its deadline, but as Wirral Borough Council removed the requirement to maintain the performance venue as part of the tender, it is not yet known what will happen to the concert hall in the future. Our May concert will therefore now take place at the Floral Pavilion Conference Centre, just a couple of miles away, on the seafront in New Brighton. Box office arrangements are unchanged.
Looking further ahead, we are pleased to report that arrangements and dates are now in place for our 2012-13 season. With generous help from the management team at the Floral Pavilion we have arranged the following:
Both venues offer excellent parking and transport links and we look forward to entertaining you there! Our chairman commented, “they say a change is as good as a rest, and given its recent makeover and continuing investment, we are confident that the Floral Pavilion in particular will offer excellent facilities for both players and audience”.
We are listening to audience requests and putting together what we hope you will find to be a particularly attractive programme for next season: more on that in due course. In the meantime, come and enjoy the current season with us, help us quit Pacific Road with a bang on 31 March, and see what you make of our new Floral Pavilion venue on 19 May!
Saturday 3 November 2012 Wallasey Town Hall
Saturday 9 February 2013 Floral Pavilion
Saturday 23 March 2013 Floral Pavilion
Saturday 18 May 2013 Floral Pavilion
Original art by Sam Toft www.samtoft.co.uk