6:40pm Thursday 11th June 2009
By Adrian Mullen
MUSIC, Old and New is the theme for the Westmorland Youth Orchestra’s June 27 concert, which will include a tribute to Henry Purcell.
This year is the 350th anniversary of the birth of Henry Purcell and the WYO pays homage to the 17th Century English composer in the opening piece of the second half of its Kendal Parish Church performance.
In 1694, Purcell wrote his Funeral Music for Queen Mary and the WYO will play the March and Canzona from the piece, featuring two trumpets, two trombones and timpani.
The WYO programme kicks off with the ensemble's conductor Noel Bertram’s orchestration of Giovanni Gabrieli`s Canzona XVII. The three ‘instrumental’ choirs will be the strings with the flutes, the remaining woodwind and the brass. Noel told me that the WYO groups will be spread around the parish church recreating the sounds of the basilica of St Mark’s, Venice, in the late 16th Century.
The impressive start is followed by a piece from the contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Part, and Anton Webern`s orchestration of the Six Part Ricercare from Bach’s Art of Fugue is also featured in the extensive and varied programme.
The orchestra closes the first half with Variations on a Shaker Melody, from Aaron Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring.
Also featured during the evening will be Queen Katherine School student Matthew Bell’s Firestorm and the Phoenix (with some revisions since its 2008 premiere) as well as the Infernal Dance, Berceuse and Finale, from The Firebird, which was the first of three great ballets that Stravinsky wrote for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe.
Meanwhile, ‘welcoming music' will be played between 7pm and 7.30pm, courtesy of Levens Marang-a-tangs, a drumming group from Levens Primary School under the direction of Rachel Wadey.
Tickets are available in person from the Cumberland Building Society, in Kendal, by telephone on 015395-60054 or at the door.
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