CONDUCTOR PHILIP ASLANGUL

Philip graduated from the Guildhall School of Music in 1990, where he studied cello, piano

and conducting with Stefan Popov, Carola Grindea and Alan Hazeldine respectively.

He has pursued a varied career; as a cellist, he has given recitals around the country with

the Burlington Duo and The Q Piano Trio, including a live radio broadcast in 1991.

He has worked as a freelance cellist appearing as principal with orchestras including the

National Pops Orchestra, The Camerata of London and The City Chamber Ensemble, and is

currently the sub-principal of the English Philharmonia.

As a pianist, Philip is in demand as a repetiteur and accompanist; he has worked with the

award-winning ladies choir 'Impromptu' for the past 12 years including a performance on

BBC2 in 2000 and BBC Wales in 2009; in 2006 he accompanied the Emerald Chorus on

Radio 3.

Philip is actively involved in youth music and conducted Kingston Schools Orchestra and

Kingston Young Strings between 1998 and 2004. He is currently conductor of Sutton Youth

Music Service's Young Musician's String Group, and is coach and stand-in conductor for the

Borough's orchestras. He is an examiner and Music Medal Moderator with the ABRSM and

also works for the OU as a mentor.

LEADER ANNMARIE MCDADE

Annmarie studied violin with Trevor Williams and Jonathan Carney and piano with

Raymond Fischer at the Royal College of Music.

Annmarie had many years leading touring shows and in West End shows such as Annie get

Your Gun, Aspects of Love, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, The Producers and Company.

She spent nearly eight years in the West End production of Les Miserables (frequently

leading) until 2004. and worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, English Northern

Philharmonia, British Symphony Orchestra, Opera Della Luna , London Arts Orchestra

(principal 2nd), Camerata of London (principal 2nd & guest leader), Pro Arte Orchestra

(leader), London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra(principal 2nd & founder member) and

many others.

Solo performances include Mozart A major and G major and Bruch G minor concertos,

Beethoven's F major Romance, Bach's and Malcolm Arnold's Double Violin Concertos and

Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Annmarie teaches in schools and privately - all ages , all abilities! She was Orchestral coach

for Berkshire Young Musicians' Trust, Beauchamp House International Music and drama

courses and ENCORE.

SOLOIST JOHN PAUL EKINS

In great demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist

and chamber musician, John Paul Ekins has

given performances throughout the UK and

Northern Ireland, and overseas in the Czech

Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Kuwait,

Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and

Switzerland, and he has been broadcast on the

BBC, on Romanian national television and radio,

and on Polish television.

In 2009 he graduated from the Royal College of

Music with First Class Honours, where he

studied with John Barstow, and in the same

year he was awarded the James Anthony Horne

Scholarship by the Guildhall School of Music

and Drama to study with Charles Owen; he

graduated from the GSMD with Master's of Performance (Distinction) in 2011. He was the

recipient of a Music Education Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund, and receives

generous support from Making Music, The Concordia Foundation, The Razumovsky Trust

and The Keyboard Charitable Trust.

He has performed as soloist at a number of prestigious venues in the UK and abroad,

including London's Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St.

Martin-in-the-Fields, Fairfield Hall and Steinway Hall, Belfast's Ulster Hall, Bergen's

Troldhaugen, Birmingham's Symphony Hall, Bucharest's Athenaeum, Krakow's Florianka

Hall, Prague's Martinu Hall, and Zurich's Tonhalle. His concerto highlight thus far has been

his 2013 debut at The Royal Albert Hall, where he performed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue

alongside Southbank Sinfonia. He has also performed concertos by Mozart, Beethoven,

Schumann, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Gershwin with orchestras throughout

the UK.

International Competition successes include some 19 awards, scholarships and prizes. He

was also accepted onto the prestigious Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme, and

recently he was delighted to have been selected to appear in Making Music's Concert

Promoter's Network Brochure 2013-14. He was also the only successful pianist in Making

Music's Young Concert Artists Competition 2012, and as such was a Recommended Artist

under Making Music's Philip & Dorothy Green Award scheme.

John Paul has been particularly honoured to be presented to Her Majesty The Queen and

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip at a Reception for Young Performers at Buckingham

Palace.

PROGRAMME

PRINCE IGOR OVERTURE BORODIN (1833-1887)

Several Russian composers of the 19th century started in professions other than music:

Rimsky Korsakov started as a naval officer, while Tchaikovsky began his career as a lawyer.

Only Borodin held a non-musical post for all his career. He was an industrial chemist who

thought of his music very much as a hobby, and regarded the founding of a School of

Medicine for Women as his greatest achievement.

He is now, however, most remembered for his music, where his greatest achievement is

surely his opera Prince Igor, even though he left it unfinished and in some confusion at his

death. Even the sequence of the acts was not entirely clear. It was completed and brought

to a performing version by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov - the hand of Rimsky can be

detected in the famous Polovtsian Dances, while the overture was rather more simply

edited by Glazunov.

The sleepy calm of the opening is disturbed by fanfares, leading to a bold Russian theme. A

sinuous oriental sounding clarinet tune is followed by a bold climax, and in turn followed

by a luminous horn solo. The remainder of the overture, which is based on these fine

melodies, does not need further description; just enjoy Borodin at his finest and most

fluent.

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)

By 1866, Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) had been awarded a professorship at the

Moscow Conservatory which he held until 1877. During this time some of his most

cherished works were composed, including Swan Lake, and the famous Piano Concerto No.

1 in 1875. The creation of the concerto was tumultuous, and yet with all the sweat and

tears the work underwent, it has gone on to become a favourite in the repertoire.

Tchaikovsky was not a terrifically skilled pianist, and the solo writing is at times not

extremely well thought out. This is no matter, because the entirety of the whole concerto

sings of Tchaikovsky's uncanny talent for lyricism and freshness. The opening alone to this

wonderful piece, with its very memorable horn call and that soaring theme over pounding

piano chords, is enough to forgive any shortcoming. Certainly, for much of the twentieth

century, this piano concerto has been once of the most popular in the repertoire.

The first movement, Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso - Allegro con spirito, gives us the

grand introduction, and then a theme which is interrupted by a second theme before the

first is fully developed. This leads to a very ingenious double exposition. The first theme

comes back in some dramatic moments, interspersed with theme number two and

virtuosic shows in the solo piano.

The second movement, Andantino semplice - Prestissimo - Tempo I, is in song form and

brings more of Tchaikovsky's lyrical brilliance and cleverness. He allows us to languish in

the simple opening tune before the breezy prestissimo, a spirited French song which was

once sung by Desiree Artot to whom Tchaikovsky was briefly engaged, "Il faut s'amuser,

danser et rire." The closing moments return us to the lovely opening, but there are many

shades of the French tune mingled into the harmonization.

The finale Allegro con fuoco is set to balance the massive first and sighing middle

movements and is in sonata form. Set like a rondo finale, it begins with a gregarious

Ukrainian dance tune, ripe with syncopations. That melody is then modified in a virtuosic

and searing piano flurry over which a flowing and serene tune drifts. These themes are

developed thoroughly and then bow out for a maestoso tutti. The stage is then set for the

true finale, quick paced and full of flourish, using the dance tune.

INTERVAL

SYMPHONY NO. 5 SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)

Shostakovich has aroused much interest as a composer since he belonged to the

generation of artists that worked entirely in post-revolutionary Soviet Russia. He knew no

other world and consequently his music has been subject to special scrutiny and great

conjecture.

Born in 1906 in St Petersburg, he studied piano and composition at the renamed Leningrad

Conservatoire from 1919 onwards. His first works passed by the Soviet regime without

comment but his opera of 1936, Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District, aroused the wrath of

the authorities and was subject to a stinging attack in Pravda – the state-owned newspaper.

Some suggested that Stalin himself had penned the article that threatened Shostakovich’s

career and life in no uncertain terms. In fact, Shostakovich was “interviewed” by the

predecessor of the KGB (the NKVD) and fully expected to be exiled, like many of his

professional colleagues, to a labour camp. In a farcical turn of events, Shostakovich’s

interrogator was himself liquidated in one of Stalin’s purges; wisely Shostakovich heeded

the warning he’d been given all the same and made amends with this symphony.

Shostakovich won many awards from the State including the Stalin Prize, Hero of Socialist

Labour and Russia’s highest civilian award, the Order of Lenin. Many of his later

symphonies nominally praised the achievements of the October Revolution or victories in

the Second World War. This leads some to suggest he conceded too much of his artistic

freedom to the state and showed unnecessary loyalty to the regime. However,

Shostakovich’s sympathisers recognise that most of all he wanted to be left alone to

compose and was willing to acquiesce to the state on the surface if this allowed him to do

this. The fact that everyday people take such solace from his work hints that it is more

open to interpretation that the party intelligentsia might have liked.

Shostakovich worked on his 5th Symphony for 3 months of 1937 and it is clearly seen as his

response and apology to the totalitarian regime for the Lady Macbeth debacle. Luckily for

him it received universal acclaim at its première in Leningrad in November 1937. Though it

seemed to please the party elite there are a few quirky bits in the symphony that might

suggest Shostakovich was poking fun at the regime through his musicianship.

A rising and falling theme presented in close canonic imitation in the strings establishes the

brooding character of the first movement. Soon, however, it is countered by a more

hopeful subject introduced by the violas over a gently rhythmic accompaniment. This

second theme seems to establish itself beyond recall during a sweetly melodious duet for

flute and horn near the end of the movement, but the initial material returns to close the

first portion of the symphony on a somber D-minor tonality.

The scherzo-like Allegretto strongly resembles similar movements in the symphonies of

Gustav Mahler, which Shostakovich greatly admired. It gives way to a deeply elegiac slow

movement, all sorrow and solace.

As in the Fifth Symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler, the finale reverses the emotional

direction of the work from pathos to triumph (sincere or otherwise). Thematic reference to

the first movement, which appears midway through the piece, provides another point for

comparison between these Fifth Symphonies. But here the similarities end. Shostakovich’s

music, except for a quietly contemplative central episode, is at once martial and dance-like

in character, its unbridled energy more reminiscent of Tchaikovsky than of any Austrian or

German composer.

NEXT CONCERT

SATURDAY 28th MARCH 2015 7.30 pm

ST ANDREWS CHURCH, CHEAM

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture

Glazunov: Saxophone Concerto

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6

SUTTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Sutton Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1946 and generally gives three concerts in

the borough per season. Soloists have included professional musicians living locally,

talented students and members of the orchestra.

We are grateful for the continuing financial support from the Humphrey Richardson Taylor

Charitable Trust, our President, Patrons, and our loyal audience, donors and friends. We

would like to thank All Saints Church for the use of the Church buildings for this concert

and their provision of interval refreshments, and to Homefield Preparatory School for use

of their premises for rehearsals.

SSO OFFICERS

President

Vice President

Conductor

Chairman

Louis Rutland

Elizabeth Angel

Philip Aslangul

Carol Disspain

Treasurer

Librarian

Secretary

Concert Manager

Richard Ellis

Will Harwood

Ann Arber

Douglas Lloyd

PLAYERS

1st violins

Annmarie McDade

Paul Dickman

Liz Evans

Katie Evans

Dave Larkin

David Giles

Natalia Wierzbicka

Ben Richardson

Hazel Crossley

2nd Violins

Steve McDade

Sarah Hackett

Carol Disspain

Fiona Glasscock

Henrik Jensen

Ann Arber

Izabela Przekop

Violas

Sarah Robson

Vince Turner

Rebecca Pedrick

Sue White

Carolyn Brett

Maxine Burton

Lwsi Jones-Angove

Cellos

Niall Trainer

Marguerite Pocock

Penny Bull

Frances Burton

Alex Clark

Vibeke Hansen

Lorraine Lenaghan

James Pedrick

Betty Langmaid

Basses

Ed Davey

Philip Johnson

Flutes & Piccolo

Richard Ellis

Juliet Porter

Sam Wade

Oboes

Cynthia Betts

Doug Lloyd

Clarinets

Will Harwood

Laura Drane

Brenda Johnston

David Cox

Bassoons

David Silvera

John Wallace

Janet Martin

Contrabassoon

Rachel Hurst

Horns

Simon Davey

Caroline Auty

Janice Barker

Chris Pocock

Trumpets

Paul Martin

Michael Ahearn

Joseph Matthews

Trombones

Roger Willey

Phoebe Thomas

Emma Bridgland

Tuba

Mark Probert

Timpani

Will Burgess

Percussion

Helen Garner

Cameron Reed

Joe Belton

Gareth Roberts

Harp

Harriet Adie

Piano

John Paul Ekins