Name: Spring Song And Strings
Start: 2023-05-05T19:30:00
Location: Royal Porcelain Works

Nadine Benjamin

Michael Karcher-Young

English Symphony Orchestra

A celebration of the spring equinox, this matinee offers a generous portion of musical sunshine, hope and warmth. Beethoven’s Seventh is his most exuberant and energetic work, with several hugely popular melodies and themes, while Mozart’s evergreen Sinfonia Concertante has an unmatched abundance of lyricism, good humour and playful happiness. One of Britain’s greatest living composers, David Matthews, also contributes a new work, written in celebration of Spring and dedicated to the ESO.

ESO Cheltenham Residency: Spring Equinox

Cheltenham Town Hall

ESO’s dementia friendly concerts are integral to our ethos as musicians and performers. Our musicians have many years of experience in this field and are committed to bringing their talents to members of society who are living with dementia and other life debilitating conditions.

Research supports our experience that live music benefits people living with dementia by stimulating memories, reducing agitation and stress and improving communication between residents and staff.

Dementia Friendly Concert – ESO Wind Quartet

Malvern Theatres

Love to play Elgar? As part of the 2026 Elgar Festival, we’re once more welcoming amateur musicians from all over the country for a day of rehearsals and an informal performance in Malvern.  This year we turn to two of Elgar’s most loved and challenging overtures.

From an orchestral player’s perspective, Elgar’s ‘In the South’ (Alassio) is a thrilling but demanding showcase that captures the composer’s vivid impressions of the Italian landscape. The piece features everything from the famous viola solo depicting a shepherd’s song to brilliant brass fanfares and shimmering string passages, requiring both technical virtuosity and stamina—particularly in the strings, who barely get a moment’s rest through its roughly 20-minute duration.

Come and Play Elgar’s ‘In The South’ and ‘Froissart’

Malvern College

Schoenberg was one of the most revolutionary & challenging composers, but his early works are among the most lyrical & romantic pieces ever written. Mahler’s heart-rending Adagietto needs little introduction and is regularly in the Top 40 of Classic FM’s annual Hall of Fame, while Schoenberg’s impassioned Transfigured Night is a musical realisation of a Richard Dehmel poem, in which a young woman confesses to her betrothed that she bears another man’s child, conceived before they met. His acceptance of her, and resolve to raise the baby as theirs, is one of the most touching moments in classical music.