November 2025
The Elgar Sinfonia since 2018 has performed some fifteen concerts, 99% of which have proclaimed British Music. It is its remit to give live performances of many works especially Elgar and Vaughan Williams that may certainly have been recorded but are rarely if ever played live.
The concert in November is no exception. The Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony should receive many more performances than it receives. That this work whose title Pastoral denies it’s real message of WW 1 is as profound as any work I know. Holst’s ‘Hammersmith’ reflects and considers, with the ever-flowing Thames, the moods and life there, an area where he taught at St Pauls Girls School for many years. It is a masterpiece, neglected in my view.
I myself have never experience Elgar’s Cello Concerto in the concert hall played on the Viola in the Tertis version approved by the composer. This is rare opportunity to explore the different sounds and colours to be heard; perhaps in a tragic new light.
Adrian Brown Music Director July 2025
June 2025
The Elgar Sinfonia on June 22nd will perform a special concert acknowledging the 80th VE Day Celebrations in the beautiful spiritual setting of St Andrew’s Holborn, London
The music will be reflective, respectful of the sacrifice, moving and celebratory.
Elgar wrote his choral work ‘The Spirit of England’ during WW 1 setting the poems from ‘The Winnowing Fan’ by Binyon that have become part of our national experience of mourning. Elgar wrote music deeply felt about the very day the War started, the Women left behind and the memory of the end of the conflict. It resonates as a reminder of the tragedy of all wars. That Binyon wrote these poems of such profundity is even more astonishing given their date; Autumn 1914- so prophetic.
The magnificent settings of Psalms 29 and 48 are grand and celebratory, composed for special services in St Paul’s Cathedral. The drama of the words is vividly portrayed in our great composers setting. Quiet reflective relief comes in our concert with Edward’s ‘Sospiri’ (Sighing) for Strings, short and meditative, played first at London’s First Night of the Proms Concert in 1914 a few days after War had been declared.
Sir Arthur Bliss was Master of the Queen’s Music in the 1960’s and 70’s and wrote much glorious music in celebration. Musicians this year are remembering him on the 50th anniversary of his passing.
His was wife, Lady Trudy Bliss, was a great personal friend of me and my family, living for well over a century! She came to many of my concerts and would be delighted we are playing her husband’s ‘Introduction and Allegro’. Written in the 1930’s for the USA and the Conductor Leopold Stokowski (he of the ‘Fantasia’ and Mickey Mouse fame), this compact, brilliantly written piece for our orchestra will expand the emotions to be heard in this varied and stimulating programme. Conducting the Bliss will take me back 53 years to the fact that I conducted it for my Royal Academy Exam!!
Adrian Brown
March 2025
October 2024
Uncovered Imogen Holst Violin Concerto to receive first public performance.
Imogen Holst’s Violin Concerto will have its first public performance in London on 24 November, almost 90 years after the work was written in 1935.
Violinist and composer Midori Komachi is reviving the neglected violin concerto as part of her latest project bridging UK and Japanese cultures through music.
Komachi’s initiative, sparked by her research and discovery of the manuscript of the Concerto for Violin and Strings by Imogen Holst at the Archive, Britten Pears Arts in Aldeburgh, has resulted in the score publication by Faber Music and a series of events this year.
October 2021
The perfect way to celebrate not only British music and Elgar but also Dame Janet Baker receiving the Elgar Medal and 50years of the Elgar Society. Thank you to all who played wonderfully, Elgar himself for the magical composition and of course the other “side of the triangle” as Dame Janet so beautifully said, “the audience.” Fantastic to finally get the chance to fill every seat again!!
Click below to read the article in full.