Cathedral concert for Sinfonia Viva

The concert, entitled A Little Symphony in F, is the latest stage of the popular Twilights series of late afternoon and early evening performances at the cathedral.

Twilights is a partnership between Sinfonia Viva and Derby Cathedral and has been a key element in the cathedral’s two-year cultural audience development programme supported with a £80,000 Arts Council England grant.

The concert, starting at 7.30pm, will feature work by Haydn, Strauss and Beethoven and Frank Zielhorst explained that this varied programme would appeal to a wide range of classical music fans.

Frank Zielhorst who, for the past two years, has performed extensively as Leverhulme Young Conductor in Association at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, said: “I am so looking forward to returning to Derby to conduct Sinfonia Viva in Derby Cathedral, which is a truly magnificent building with wonderful acoustics.

“This will be my second time with the orchestra in as many months having worked with the musicians and composer James Redwood for the performance of the education residency Mechanical Advantage at Derby Theatre in early February.

“This is the first time that I will be conducting the full orchestra and the programme that we have selected is perfect for my debut.

“We start with Haydn’s Symphony No 90 which always leaves the audience guessing as Haydn was a real joker – taking the music off into different directions to keep us all on our toes.

“Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1 is a beautiful piece and he is the master of the horn which is a wonderful instrument to take centre stage.

“We finish the programme with Beethoven’s Symphony No 8, which is a very charming and exciting score.

“Described by the composer as ‘a little symphony in F’, in my opinion this is not played enough despite it being one of the Beethoven’s best symphonies and I am delighted that we will be sharing this with the Derby audience.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed working so closely with Viva over the past few weeks – joining their education residency and then preparing for the Twilights concert in early March.”

For more information and box office details, visit www.vivaorch.co.uk

Photo by Nigel Apperley