Last Night of the Proms for all The Redditch Orchestra

To mark The Redditch Orchestra’s 70th anniversary, and as part of the Bromsgrove Festival, we are delighted to present A LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS concert for ALL the family.

The first half of the concert is devoted to music with an ANIMAL flavour: Johann Strauss II’s overture to his ever popular opera “Die Fledermaus” (“The Bat”) begins the concert. “CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS” is a humorous musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. Come with us to the jungle, the aquarium and the aviary to meet a lion, hens and roosters, tortoises, an elephant, kangaroos, donkey and several more. Our conductor James Thomas and his partner Lizzie Peacock will play piano duet in “The fossils” and our principal cellist, Olivia Goodborn, will play the glorious melody depicting “The Swan”.

Another Lion appears as we play a selection from Zimmer’s music for “The Lion King” film, and we “Walk the Dog” courtesy of George Gershwin’s composition arranged by our leader Graham Longfils. Michael Flanders’s and Donald Swann’s Songs, also arranged for this concert by Graham, include “The Hippopotamus” and “The Spider in the bath” with vocal soloist Adam Jones.

After the interval we’ll feature Harp and Flute as solo instruments when we play the first movement of Mozart’s Flute and Harp concerto with soloists Rachel Longfils-Bento and Lizzie Peacock. And then our Last Night of the Proms Favourites bring the concert to a climax with plenty of opportunities for the audience to join in the singing. Woods’ “Fantasia on British Sea Songs (Rule Britannia), Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 (Land of Hope and Glory) and Parry’s “Jerusalem”.