Category Orchestra

Reading Time: 3 minutesCreative Director Matt Belcher’s vision for The Orchestral Forest sees the audience experiencing a classical concert from within, free to wander between the ‘trees’, our orchestra blooming from scattered podiums across Sinfonia Smith Square’s hall. The programme celebrates the hidden beauty of the UK’s ancient rainforests, with Belcher’s guide to the performance informing us that at one time, ‘as much as 20% of the UK was covered in temperate rainforest. Today, as little as 0.07% remains. Most have been replaced by conifer plantations – dense, silent monocultures that are intensively grown and felled on repeat…as a result, these forests are now among the rarest and most vulnerable in the world.’

Reading Time: 2 minutesProm 63 of the BBC Proms, featuring The Sixteen under Harry Christophers, was an impeccably curated exploration of English choral traditions, with a focus on sacred and pastoral works. The ensemble’s trademark precision was in full display, as they navigated a repertoire ranging from the Renaissance clarity of Thomas Tallis to the harmonic warmth of Parry and Vaughan Williams.