Shifting sands bring multimedia to a new season with The Brigantes Orchestra

The Brigantes Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Quentin Clare and sponsored by Sheffield company Neuronatal, is the city’s own professional orchestra and has been performing to critical acclaim since 2019.

The orchestra plays in St Marie’s Catholic Cathedral on Friday, October 18, for the first concert of the new season, The Borrowers, featuring Kurt Weill’s Second Symphony - an effervescent potpourri of Haydn-like classical humour - and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony with its passionate, restless energy and baroque-styled finale.

It is a programme which sees both great composers writing music nostalgic for the past.

Sunday, December 8, sees an afternoon concert of Baroque Bonbons at St Marie’s, including Autumn and Winter from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 3.

Shifting Sands is the theme on Friday, March 7, with concerts for both schools and family audiences at Sheffield’s Anglican Cathedral, which sees The Brigantes go multimedia!

A new type of solo performer, sand artist Rosa van der Vijver, will illustrate Maurice Ravel's fairy tale ballet Mother Goose live to the music.

The evening performance will also feature Saint-Saëns’ popular Danse Macabre as well as Dutch composer Henriëtte Bosmans’ exotic Concertino for Piano and Orchestra and Poulenc's Piano Concerto - both featuring local virtuoso Annabelle Lawson.

The season ends at Sheffield Cathedral on Friday June 6 with Threads of Fate, a passionate finale, featuring John Williams' moving theme from Schindler's List, Tchaikovsky's beautiful 5th symphony and Barber's sublime Adagio for Strings.

“The overall theme of this season is Fluidity, both musically and emotionally as well as in nature and movement,” said Quentin.

“We are particularly thrilled to welcome Rosa van der Vijver, a brilliant sand artist who creates beautiful art live to the music, as well as Annabelle Lawson, who will play Poulenc's Piano Concerto and a rarely played piece by the Henriëtte Bosmans, a musician who struggled to compose in her time because of society's attitudes to women in music, those who were sexually fluid, and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

“Her Piano Concertino is a very special piece, and she deserves to be better known.

“Our schools’ concert last season was particularly successful in bringing 300 children and young people to a classical concert and we will be repeating this, hoping to give even more opportunities for children to attend in our new season.”

To find out more about Brigantes Orchestra and its 2024/25 concert season visit thebrigantes.uk