NDS MUSIC FESTIVAL MARCH 15th to 17th 2019
We have ambitious plans to give NDS an opportunity to tackle works normally beyond our reach, while at the same time extending out to try to encourage young people to join in and listen to Classical Music.
We will have 2 intensive full days of music making, under the professional guidance of Maxime Tortelier. We will have professional tutoring in sectional rehearsals as well as the sessions with Maxime, as we prepare to perform Beethoven’s Triple Concerto (soloists, the Fidelio Trio led by Darragh Morgan) on the Saturday night, and Mahler’s 5th Symphony on the Sunday night. The Saturday concert will feature the professional groups, Fidelio Trio and Festive Flutes, and well as our performance of the Triple.
From January we will start working with Primary and Secondary schools to encourage participation from as many young people as possible. In the week of the Festival schools will have visits from the Fidelio Trio and Festive Flutes, and their week will come together for an orchestral day on the Friday, probably with 2 levels of orchestras, one of which will be tutored by Maxime Tortelier. There will be performances in the early evening. We are also working on ideas with Festive Flutes to involve them with schools in the weeks leading up to the Festival.
If we can raise awareness in sufficient young people, then the ideal would be the emergence of North Devon Youth Sinfonia as an on-going entity.
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.