Abergavenny Symphony Orchestra will be giving an airing to Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Dvořák’s Symphony No 6 in D in the latest of their series of concerts.

The ensemble is one of the oldest amateur orchestras in the UK–a community group with members of all ages who from a 40 mile radius of the town.

They hold weekly rehearsals during school term time and play a wide variety of music, mainly focused towards performing three main concerts per year, plus a free children’s concert to give young people a flavour of live orchestral music.

Director of Music Michael Bell stated, ‘Antonin Dvořák wrote nine symphonies between 1865 and 1893.

Almost everyone will be familiar with the ninth symphony, ‘From the New World’, if only from the beautiful and very familiar theme of the slow movement…and its association with a certain type of bread!

‘The eighth symphony, performed last year by Abergavenny Symphony Orchestra following some interesting ‘lockdown’ rehearsals in the Pen-y-Pound football stadium, will be almost as well known, perhaps the seventh slightly little less so (though it is frequently described as Dvořák’s greatest).

‘Dvořák’s Symphony no.6 that the Abergavenny Symphony Orchestra is performing in our concert on March 26 falls somewhere in the category of being not exactly a neglected work, but one that deserves to be much better known.

It is a work of sheer delight.

‘Elgar’s Cello Concerto is one of the two most beloved concertos for that instrument, the other being Dvořák’s. We are fortunate indeed to welcome back Rosie Biss, the distinguished Principal Cello of the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, who has previously performed the Dvořák and Schumann concertos with us.

'The concert will open with one of Beethoven’s most popular works, his Egmont Overture, a piece that moves from darkness to light, from tragedy to victory with much musical Sturm und Drang along the way.’

The performance takes place at Our Lady & St Michael’s Church, Abergavenny, on Sunday March 26th at 2.30pm. Tickets are £10 with free entry for students and children.

Tickets can be booked in advance online and there will also be limited ticket sales at the door, book online at abergavennysymph.org.uk.