OUR NEXT PERFORMANCE

Saturday, 15th July 2023 at 7.30pm
​St Thomas' Church, Lymington

Wagner - Meistersingers Overture
Sibelius - Karelia Suite, Valse Triste & Symphony No. 2

OUR NEXT PERFORMANCE

Saturday, 15th July 2023 at 7.30pm
St Thomas' Church, Lymington

Wagner - Meistersingers Overture
Sibelius - Karelia Suite, Valse Triste & Symphony No. 2

PAST CONCERTS

BRAHMS & DVORAK
22 March 2023

The New Forest Orchestra returned to All Saints’ Church, Milford on Sea for a weeknight concert. 
We started with Brahms’ Tragic Overture, a piece which reflects the composer's tendency towards melancholy. 

Next, Cathy Ash-Vie stepped  to the front to play the Adagio for Clarinet and Orchestra by Heinrich Baermann, who was a 19th century German virtuoso clarinet player. He was an exponent of a new style of playing made possible by technical developments in the construction of the instrument.  

Malcolm Arnold’s  Little Suite for Orchestra concluded the first half. Arnold was a prolific composer including symphonies, ballets, operas, concertos and film music. 

In the second half, we performed Dvorak’s Symphony No 6. Hans Richter (the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra) had been impressed by Dvorak’s compositions and asked him to write a Symphony for the orchestra. The premiere took place in Prague in 1881 conducted by Adolf Cech. The influences on Dvorak included German symphonic tradition and admiration for Wagner, but predominantly nationalistic and folk influences.  

The Orchestra had not given a Concert on a Wednesday evening  hitherto ( always previously at the weekend)  but we had good support from Milford-on-Sea,

An Afternoon at the Opera
​27 November 2022

The New Forest Orchestra presented An Afternoon at the Opera on Sunday 27th November at Ballard School. The Concert featured overtures and suites from popular operas, plus familiar arias.
 
The concert opened with the overture to Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera Hansel & Gretel. Arias sung by local Soprano Sally Prince included Rusalka’s Song to the Moon and the delightful O Mio Babbino Caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Sally was joined by mezzo-soprano Victoria Hopkins (who also plays horn in the orchestra when not singing) for the famous Flower Duet and Offenbach’s Barcarolle.
 
There was an orchestral suite featuring the ever-popular themes from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. Finally, a trip to Seville for a suite from Bizet’s Carmen.   The concert was rounded off by the stirring Barber of Seville overture by Rossini.

Dvorak 8
9 July 2022

​The orchestra returned to St Thomas' Church for the first time since the Pandemic. 

​Long-standing Orchestra Member Siubhan O'Neill played Capuzzi's Double Bass Concerto. Dvorak's Eighth Symphony brims with one gorgeous melody  after another.

Landscapes & Melodramas
3 April 2022

The concert began in Vienna with Mozart's Marriage of Figaro overture. 

Grieg's evocative music for the play Peer Gynt took us from Norway to the north coast of Africa, before returning via a tempestuous sea voyage to his homeland. Solveig, the girl he left behind many years before, sings a song of forgiveness.

Bizet's score for the play L'Arlesienne has long outlasted the stage version. The tragic story of a French youth and his fateful love for a girl from the local town of Arles pulls at the heartstrings.

Finally, MacCunn's vivid evocation of the mountains and scenery of Scotland rounded off the Concert.

Sunday Serenade
​5 December 2021

It was lovely to be back in front of an audience at the Memorial Centre in New Milton.

The concert started with a Fanfare by our Horn section - The Earl of Oxford's March.  Extracts from two Mozart Serenades followed.
  
​Elgar's sublime Serenade for Strings was played to a hushed audience.  It was very gratifying that afterwards a few wind players said how moved they had been, especially in the slow Movement. We don't often hear that as amateur players.

The Strauss Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments followed. Finally we came together for Haydn Symphony 104 - his last.  It was such a joy to be joining forces again.  The excitement was palpable, especially in the last movement which took off at break neck speed!

The concert that never was!
​28 March 2020

It might have happened in March 2020 ... but it didn't! As we all know,  Covid changed the world, and we are left only with this poster as a souvenir of what might have been

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
​7 December 2019

A packed house greeted the NFO and the Total Voice Chamber Choir to kick off the Christmas season in 2019.

Concert archive

8 May 2022 - Milford on Sea music festival, All Saints Church. Mozart Marriage of Figaro overture, Grieg Peer Gynt (Morning from Suite 1, Ingrid's Lament, Homecoming and Solveig's Song from Suite 2), Vaughan Williams Prelude to 49th Parallel, Morricone Gabriel's Oboe, Mancini Moon River, Binge Elizabethan Serenade, Coates By the Sleepy Lagoon, Bizet L'Arlesienne Suite 1 (nos 1, 2 & 4).

14 July 2019 - New Forest Orchestra performance at Milford on Sea Music and Arts Festival.  All Saints' Church, Milford on Sea. Including music in tribute to the Moon Landing of 1969.

29 June 2019 - Summer Concert, St Thomas' Church, Lymington. Including: Warlock's Capriol Suite, Bach: Passacaglia and Fugue  in C Minor, Beethoven's Symphony No 6 (Pastoral).

30 March 2019 - "Mainly Schubert" at All Saints', Milford on Sea: Included Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and incidental music, Beethoven's Egmont Overture, Smetana's Vltava and Mendelssohn's Hebrides.

18 Nov 2018 - "Lest we Forget"  at St Michael's , Lyndhurst :  Included Butterworth's "Banks of Green Willow" and Ivor Gurney's "War Elegy (courtesy of the Gurney Society)  

3 Nov 2018 - NFO participated in "Pack up your Troubles"  - New Milton's tribute to the centenary of the end of the First World War

7 July 2018 - La Belle Epoque :      Offenbach : Orfee en Enfers, Faure, Franck, Chabrier and Bizet's L'Arlesienne - Incidental  music at St Thomas' , Lymington

​1 Apr 2018 - Wagner: Rienzi Overture, Grieg: Peer Gynt, Tchaikovsky:  Second Symphony (Little Russian) St Saviour's Church , Brockenhurst

25 Nov 2017 - Weber: Oberon Overture, Bruckner: Four Little Pieces ,Mendelssohn:  Hebrides Overture, Schubert Symphony No 3 All Saints' Church, Milford on Sea

8 July 2017 - Beethoven:  Egmont Overture, Sibelius: Finlandia, Smetana:  Vltava,  Borodin: Polovtsian Dances,  Dvorak : Te Deum Concert with Total Voice at St Thomas', Lymington

6 May 2017 - “Something Old, Something New , Something Borrowed" Beethoven:Egmont,  Sibelius:  Karelia, Matesky:  Paganini Variations, Britten: Matinees Musicales, St Michael's Lyndhurst.

3 Dec 2016 - Weber: Peter Schmoll,   Brahms: St Anthony Variations, Beethoven Symphony no 8,  Jarnefeld Praeludium St Mary's Church, Bransgore

9 July 2016 - "From these Isles" -     MacCunn: Land of Mountain and Flood,  Warlock: Capriol Suit   Elgar : Nimrod , Parry: Jerusalem  Sullivan :  from Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore Concert at St Thomas' Lymington with Total Voice Chamber Choir

11 June 2016 - Concert at Forest Arts Centre as part of the New Forest Arts Festival

12 Mar 2016 - Wagner: Rienzi Overture,  Mozart Violin Concerto in D ( soloist Frances Attwood)   and Dvorak 8th Symphony All Saints' Church, Milford

5 Dec 2015 - Schubert Unfinished Symphony  Bruckner Symphony No 7   - St Ambrose , Westbourne   Joint concert with Westbourne Orchestra

11 July 2015 - Gala Concert at St Thomas' Church , Lymington Thieving Magpie Overture Opera Extracts, Fantasia on British Sea Songs

17 May 2015 - Lest we Forget  at St Michael's Church, Lyndhurst

21 Feb  2015 - Invitation to the Dance  at Brockenhurst Village Hall Dance Music from the Ballet and Concert Hall                                                 

15 Nov 2014 - Zadok the Priest and Hallelujah Chorus, Faure Requiem With Total Voice Chamber Choir at All Saint's Milford      

27 July 2014 - Milford on Sea Arts Festival                

12 & 19 July - Joint Concert with Westbourne Orchestra: Romeo and Juliet , Rodrigo Guitar Concierto di Aranjuez , Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony 

4 May 2014 - "May the Fourth be with you!" Children’s Concert at St Michael's Lyndhurst
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14 Dec 2013 - Wagner, Vaughan Williams ,  Sibelius First Symphony at St Mary Magdalene, New Milton

29 June 2013 - "Music for a Summer’s Evening" at All Saint's Milford: Leonore 3, Carmen and L'Arlesienne Suites

11 May 2013 - Rossini, Bizet, Capuzzi, Dvorak Symphony No 6 at St Thomas', Lymington

15 Dec 2012 - "Marriage of Figaro Overture" and Haffner Symphony  at St Mary the Virgin, Bransgore

7 July 2012 - "Proms Favourites"  at St Thomas', Lymington, Haydn's London Symphony, Crown Imperial, Dambusters March  etc!

28th April 2012 - Rossini "Barber of Seville Overture and Borodin Symphony No 2 at All Saint's Milford

3rd Dec 2011 - Mozart Sinfonia Concertante and Schubert 8th Symphony at St Thomas, Lymington

July 2011 - "Magical Music" – Charity Concert for Naomi House at All Saint's Milford

12 Dec 2010 - "Classical Favourites" at Brockenhurst Village Hall