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ESO Earns Classical Music Magazine “Premiere of the Year” for Second Year in a Row with John Joubert’s Jane Eyre

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For the second year in a row, the English Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods have received the Classical Music Magazine Premiere of the Year nod for the Midlands. Following on the 2015 selection of the premiere of Donald Fraser’s orchestration of the Elgar Piano Quintet at the Elgar Hall in the final concert of the ESO’s 2015 Elgar Pilgrimage, Christopher Morley, longtime senior music critic of the Birmingham Post, has made the ESO’s performance of John Joubert’s opera Jane eyre his 2016 Premiere of the Year.

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The ESO’s Avie Records recording of last year’s Premiere of the Year went on to be a Classic FM CD of the Week and spent 8 weeks in the classical Top 20, all the more reason to look forward to the release of Jane Eyre on Somm Recordings in March 2017.

 

“…. Kenneth Woods conducting an on-its-toes English Symphony Orchestra and a totally committed cast of 12, among whom April Fredrick as Jane and David Stout as Rochester were simply outstanding…Joubert as a composer is unafraid to encompass the achievements of previous operatic greats…unleashing a wonderfully engaging well-structured language of his own…”

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CD Review: BBC Music Magazine on Elgar- Sea Pictures and Piano Quintet arr. Donald Fraser

 

A new review of our Elgar CD from critic Stephen Johnson in the July 2016 issue of BBC Music Magazine.

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“The result is pretty remarkable. Fraser hasn’t just translated Elgar’s notes into rich and powerful orchestral terms, he as added (discreetly it must be said) the kinds of touches of colour and splashes of figuration Elgar himself might well have introduced. It really sounds like Elgar… beautifully realised, performed with warmth and understanding, and sympathetically recorded. Same too with the Sea Pictures”

 

BBC Music July 2016 Elgar Column 1

BBC Music July 2016 Elgar Column 2

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CD Review- Gramophone Magazine on Elgar arr. Fraser- Sea Pictures and Piano Quintet

Critic Andrew Achenbach writes in the July 2016 issue of Gramophone Magazine.

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“To my ears, Fraser’s richly upholstered orchestration works a treat yet also manages to be astutely appreciative of the simmering passion and sense of loss that permeate this wistful creation (the Adagio slow movement is especially affecting). Plaudits, too, for Woods’s characteristically lucid and fervent performance with his own English Symphony Orchestra, opulently captured by balance engineer Simon Fox-Gál.”

Gramophone Elgar July 2016 Part 1

Gramophone Elgar July 2016 Part 2

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CD of the Week- ESO, A portrait of Elgar

Click here to buy.

Reviews

‘Boughton elicits solid, brilliant, feeling performances … As these performances meld something of Boult’s propulsion and body with an approximation of Barbirolli’s swing, they might serve as the ideal introduction. This production stands strongly recommended.’ Fanfare

‘The Elegy, is given a wonderful degree of gravity without ever over-heating – one of the tenderest versions on disc. The lightweight Serenade for strings is phrased with delicacy. The Chanson de nuit and Chanson de matin are given in arrangements for string orchestra which work well.The set as a whole can be heartily commended to newcomers to Elgar’s music and they give a pretty comprehensive view of his orchestral works.’ Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb-International.com, August 2012

Elgar Portrait 1

 

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October 8- A String Pilgrimage, Elgar Concert Hall

October 8th at Elgar Concert Hall, Birmingham University Campus

 

Elgar Concert Hall in the Bramall Music Building
Elgar Concert Hall in the Bramall Music Building

7:30 PM
English String Orchestra
Kenneth Woods- principal conductor

Tippett- Concerto for Double String Orchestra
John McCabe- “Pilgrim” for Double String Orchestra
Vaughan Williams- Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Elgar- Introduction and Allegro for Strings

Tickets: £16, £12, £8
Town Hall Symphony Hall Box Office  0121 345 0600
Click here for booking details

 

Composer-in-association, John McCabe (photo Gareth Arnold)
Composer-in-association, John McCabe (photo Gareth Arnold)

ESO String Quartet- Michael Bochmann, Angus Gibbon-violins, Helen Roberts- viola, Peter Adams- cello

The ESO’s first concert in the splendid acoustic of Elgar Hall with a survey of the best of English string orchestra music “Pilgrim” by ESO composer-in-association  John McCabe is a powerful evocation of John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” McCabe’s predecessor as ESO composer-in-association was Sir Michael Tippett, whose vibrant and witty Concerto opens the concert. Few works have won the kind of place in listener’s hearts held by Vaughan Williams’ haunting Fantasia, a work the ESO has recorded to international acclaim. Finally, what better finale could there be for a concert in Elgar Hall than one of the master’s own finest works, performed by the orchestra based in his home town of Malvern?

 

 

 

Part of the ESO’s

OCTOBERevolution FINAL