Mon 25 Nov 24
Monday 25th November, 7.30pm.
Tickets: £22, £28
Smith Square Hall
London SW1P 3HA
Kensington Symphony Orchestra returns to St John’s Smith Square on Monday 25 November, when soprano Monica McGhee joins the group for a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.4 (1899-1900). Shorter in length and using smaller orchestral forces than the composer’s earlier symphonies, the four-movement work boasts a disarmingly tuneful opening, followed by a scherzo that depicts Death at his violin, contrasted with Ländler-style trios. After an extended Adagio that Mahler considered his finest slow movement, the finale incorporates a song for soprano – Das himmlische Leben, or ‘The Heavenly Life’, completed in 1892 – that presents a child’s vision of heaven.
The concert opens with Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi’s Serenade in Seven Colours (2013),
written for woodwind and percussion. Inspired by Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Winds No.10, ‘Gran
Partita’ and Quiet Nights by jazz musicians Miles Davis and Gil Evans, her kaleidoscopic showpiece
progresses from shimmering impressionistic textures to an explosion of colour.
Conductor Russell Keable also leads KSO’s string section in Grace Williams’s Sea Sketches (1944), a fivemovement work evoking life on and near the water, and featuring long flowing lines inspired by the sea. One of the Welsh composer’s most popular pieces, it was written while she was living in London but anticipating her return after the Second World War to her home town of Barry in South Wales.
Described as “one of the very best amateur groups in the country” by Classical Music magazine,
KSO has been hailed by Classical Source for “putting on bold, adventurous programmes that few
of the ‘big five’ in London would either think of or get away with”...
