Review of Summer Concert, 2010

Canterbury Orchestra

Summer concert

St Peter's Methodist Church
June 26th 2010

The city of Canterbury is fortunate in many respects with respect to its musical life, often punching above its weight  in ambition and realisation of musical projects (with the promise of much more to come!).  In the same way it is fortunate to have so many amateur music makers, literally people who are passionate about music making  deriving and giving pleasure to many. This is certainly the case with Canterbury Orchestra  whose forty four players were directed by conductor Andrew Lowen through some appropriately summer sounds in their concert given in St Peter's Methodist Church.

The delightful programme of a youthful Schubert Symphony no 3 , Wagner's passionate outpouring of love in his Siegfried  Idyll  and Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream (written at the age of 17!) was overall a joyful experience for listener and player alike. Whilst the intense heat presented intonation challenges for the wind players at times and the 'supportive acoustic'  as with London's Barbican favoured the brass and timps over the strings, each work was shaped and phrased with care. The ensemble was very pleasing , obvious attention paid in rehearsal to the challenges presented in each of these works with strong solo playing when required, especially so in the Mendelssohn Nocturne with its demanding horn writing.

All in all this was a splendid evening, the orchestra proudly wearing its Canterbury badge and promising much more to come next season.

Musicus

Review for the Kentish Gazette