2024-2025 Season
As our 2024-2025 season approaches, excitement is building for a series of fantastic musical experiences. The upcoming season will not only revisit familiar repertoire, but will be a feast of classical repertoire including Mahler, Grieg, Williams, Shostakovich, Walton, Dvorak, Rachmaninov and Strauss.
We commence in October with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite – less a composition, more a scenic escapade. It paints Ibsen's original drama in vibrant musical hues, from the idyllic “Morning Mood” to the frenzied “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. This suite is Grieg’s love letter to Norwegian folklore, wrapped in the garb of theatrical grandeur. The concert’s grand finale is Mahler's Symphony No. 5, a colossal narrative spanning the spectrum of human emotion. Known for its Adagietto, a symphonic serenade of love, this symphony is Mahler’s crowning achievement. The performance will be nothing short of epic, a fitting tribute to Mahler’s grandiose vision.
In December we celebrate the coming of Christmas with our popular Family Spectacular and we are especially excited to announce that this year's concert will feature The Brighton's Gay Men's Chorus. With festive Orchestral and Choral numbers as well as the ever popular 12 days of Christmas this is a wonderful concert for the whole family to get everyone in the Christmas mood.
In March 2025 we perform Marques Danzon No 2 which is one of the most popular and most frequently performed orchestral Mexican contemporary classical music compositions. Danzón No. 2 gained great popularity worldwide when the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel included it on their programme for their 2007 European and American tour. This is followed by the haunting melodies of Schindler's list by Williams. The first half concludes with Shostakovich Cello Concerto. This vibrant concerto is to be performed by Sussex-based musician Riya Hamie who recently won the Sussex Young Musician of the year competition. Considered one of the finest achievements in the cello repertory from the 20th century, the Cello Concerto No. 1 includes a famously innovative treatment of the main cadenza usually expected to occur in the opening movement. Here, it is placed at a focal point that bridges the way to the finale. One distinguished critic described it as a ‘cello symphony’. We conclude the March concert with the incredible 6th Symphony by Tchaikovsky - his final completed symphony which is known as Pathetique. Excerpts from this Symphony can be heard in a number of films including Anna Karenina as well as the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
We finish the season with our Brighton Fringe concert which starts with the feisty Spitfire & Fugue from Walton, rolics through Dvorak's Slavonik dances towards one of the most famous piano concertos - Rachmaninov's second concerto. If that isn't enough, we conclude our season with Richard Strauss Don Juan; a piece which is a brilliant, swashbuckling and fervent score. It is some of the most daringly virtuosic music ever written. Don Juan is full of grand, heroic, and blustering themes, with the legendary lover/scoundrel in constant pursuit of his next target of seduction. (The poem the work is based on called it a “storm of pleasure.”) It’s programmatic music delights in orchestral color. With recurring themes representing people (each woman Don Juan pursues is distinctly portrayed), places, emotions, and actions, the result is some of the most sumptuous and vivid romantic writing in history.
The Sussex Symphony Orchestra's 2024-25 season is an insurrection against the mundane, a challenge to the listener to engage, to question, to feel. Each concert will be a testament to the indomitable spirit of these titanic composers, an invitation to join in their ceaseless quest for beauty and truth. This season is not just a series of concerts; it is a call to arms for all who dare to live, breathe, and embrace such a wonderful selection of repertoire.
