#APOfriends provides emotional evening

An enthusiastic audience enjoyed our #APOfriends concert on 21st May at The Concert Hall in Reading Town Hall. The orchestra took advantage of the hall’s beautiful acoustic to make a rich sound in Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The second half saw conductor Andrew explain the tragic back story of Malcolm Arnold’s Fifth Symphony, before a performance packed full of emotion and drama. The long silences held at the end of the second movement and the finale were indicative of how spellbound the audience were. The concert opened with composer Fumiko Miyachi joining Andrew on the stage to talk about her development as a composer since the commission of her Variation on Purcell/Warlock Fantasia No.2 for strings. You can hear her revised version here.