North Devon Sinfonia is making their boldest move ever by representing the UK at the Seoul International Community Orchestra Festival in September. Please see details in the “News” Section

North Devon Sinfonia is a full scale symphony orchestra made up of between 50 and 80 players (depending on repertoire) performing three or four concerts per year in venues across North Devon.

 

The orchestra brings high quality performances at reasonable prices to the local community, at the same time providing an educational and recreational outlet for some of the county’s most talented amateur musicians.

 

Our membership reflects a broad cross-section of North Devon society including students, doctors, teachers, care workers, factory workers, postmen, a horticulturalist, students, farmers, a vicar and pensioners. Ages range from the teens to the 70s and the orchestra is exclusively amateur; none of our players is paid to perform.

 

In March 2016 the orchestra was selected to take part in the BBC4/BBC2 TV programme All Together Now: the Great Orchestra Challenge hosted by presenter Katie Derham. The programme set out to find the amateur orchestra that best demonstrated the spirit of amateur music making.

 

Seeing off stiff competition from orchestras based in London, Birmingham, Yorkshire and Scotland, NDS went on to win the competition at the final, held in the Royal Albert Hall in August.

 

This was followed a few weeks later by a performance to an audience of thousands at BBC Proms in the Park in Hyde Park.

 

NDS is now building on its reputation for “inspirational” performances by promoting amateur music locally. A North Devon Youth Sinfonia was created in 2017 and plans are afoot to hold the first North Devon Classical Music festival in Spring 2018.