Sunday 30th June 2024 – 7.00pm – Chelsea Town Hall

We have had one of the wettest springs on record, or at least that’s what it feels like but here at KPO we have come up with a sunny, bright programme that will sweep away those grey wet skies and warm the cockles of your heart.

We have a sumptuous arrangement of three spirituals written as Concert Overture no. 2 by Florence Price, an early 20th century African-American composer whose works are now being rediscovered and heralded. Her overture is a fine example of her rich orchestral style swapping noble poignancy with a ragtime beat.

As soloist in Alexander Arutiunian’s trumpet concerto we are delighted to welcome Jasmin Gherawho is completing the Advanced Diploma course at the Royal Academy of Music in Londonbutalready has an impressive solo career. Arutiunian was an Armenian composer along the lines of Khachaturian and the Russian composer Prokofiev, heavily reliant on the vital dance rhythms of his native country contrasting here with long serene lines in the work’s slow middle movement. It is definitely on a par with the trumpet concertos of Haydn and Hummel for the sheer beauty and the bravura needed to meet the technical challenges of this memorable piece.

We round off our concert with one of the most purely joyous, melodic and inventive pieces of music ever written. This is Dvorak’s Symphony no. 8, written when all was well with the world for him and his family - the themes just sing all the way through, dappled with the rhythmic jaunty folk music of his beloved native country, Bohemia. You will go out on cloud nine - the wispy clouds floating in a serene blue sky, with all memory of our grey rainy spring banished forever.

Join us for this concert of uplifting music-making, mixed in as ever with the customary relaxed warmth and brio of a typical KPO welcome - what’s not to like?