Wrexham Symphony Orchestra draw their year-long celebrations to a close at a spectacular 50th birthday party and concert for the whole family on Sunday, 3rd November at the William Aston Hall. Paying tribute to the small group of string musicians who performed their first concert in Wrexham Memorial Hall on October 30th, 1969, the Orchestra’s birthday party concert programme features popular music from the 2019 Classic FM Hall of Fame.
Movie Themes…
The concert programme will include music from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Swan Lake. It will also include No 1 in the Hall of Fame, Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’ performed by international violinist Sophie Rosa, returning to the concert stage after her outstanding performance with the Orchestra in July. In addition, the Orchestra is thrilled that one of their former Young Musicians of the Year, Oboist Tom Blomfield, will join them on this special occasion and perform Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto.
Their birthday party and concert will close 15 months celebrating 50 years of performing live music in Wrexham. In 1969, a group of musicians led by Bryn Williams established the Clywedog String Ensemble which performed concerts across the Borough. The ensemble eventually led to the formation of Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, which now has 70 members drawn from across the generations and professions.
Humble Beginnings
Wrexham Symphony Orchestra is a full complement, 70-strong member community orchestra. Starting as a small string ensemble in 1969 and performing out of Cartrefle College in Wrexham, we have grown over the last 50 years to become a high quality and progressive large orchestral ensemble performing ‘full works’ concerts to exacting standards. In May 2015, we made our debut at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to critical acclaim performing Mahler’s Second Symphony and return there in June 2020 to bring our Mahler Charitable Concert series to a fitting close in performing his Eighth Symphony, Symphony of a Thousand with a chorus of several hundred voices drawn from across North Wales and the North of England. We attract professional conductors and outstanding soloists to lead and perform in our concert repertoire.
Much of our focus is on supporting local charity and needy causes and the Mahler Charitable Concert Series established in 2010 with our sponsor Cobalz Limited has been supporting the work of Wrexham Memory Clinic and Pendine Park Care Home. We also support several local charities though our concerts.
Tom Blomfield – Principal Oboist with The Philharmonia and The Academy of St Martins in the Fields; Professor of Oboe at the Royal Academy of Music
Sophie Rosa – Violinist and recipient of the RNCM Gold Medal and the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal
