Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra offers a rich, powerful journey through music
The Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra explores how composers have responded to injustice, conflict, and the call for change.
The Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing at Victoria Hall this weekend in an exciting display of musical talent.
The show, known as Protest Notes, takes place on Saturday 13 June at 7.30pm as the Orchestra explores how composers have responded to injustice, conflict, and the call for change.
The Orchestra, which is performing for two hours, opens with Sibelius’s Finlandia — a defiant musical cry for independence and national identity, written under the shadow of Russian censorship. Then comes Ethel Smyth’s March of the Women, a rousing anthem of the suffragette movement celebrating women’s fight for equality, newly arranged for orchestra by Zoë Birtwhistle.
American composer Margaret Bonds channels the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in her deeply moving Montgomery Variations, reflecting on pivotal moments of the civil rights movement. Prokofiev’s final symphony (Symphony No. 7 in C# minor), meanwhile, balances tenderness and irony in a work often seen as his quiet protest against artistic repression in Stalinist Russia.
The evening closes with Pēteris Vasks’ The Fruit of Silence – a meditative, spiritual work inspired by the words of Mother Teresa, offering a moment of reflection amid the unrest.
Tickets, which are available at The Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra website, are priced at £7.50 for those Under-18, they are available for £10.50 for those over 65 or retired and are priced at £12.50 for adults.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story made reference to the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, which is a separate organisation to the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra. The story was updated to correct this.