Paraorchestra
A Bristol-based orchestra is to perform at Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music in the UK and at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Based in Bristol, UK, and under the artistic direction of conductor Charles Hazlewood, British Paraorchestra aims to disrupt and reinvent the orchestra. Bringing together professional disabled and non-disabled musicians, Paraorchestra creates powerful music experiences that span genres and artforms. As a result, it is radically changing outdated ideas about orchestral music, and about disability.
Paraorchestra's diverse programme of live work puts audiences at the centre of the action. The orchestra's members regularly present contemporary and classical orchestral masterpieces by composers such as Steve Reich, Mozart and Górecki, as well as exploratory and playful new commissions, including recent and current work such as Trip the Light Fantastic, The Nature of Why and the joyous outdoor show Smoosh!
Paraorchestra performing Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Photo © 2024 Eljay Briss
Partnerships bring Paraorchestra's live shows to UK venues such as Southbank Centre, the Barbican and Bristol Beacon, as well as music festivals, communities, and unlikely spaces across the world. Collaborations with recording artists - Hannah Peel, The Unfolding, released on Real World Records, and Death Songbook with Suede's Brett Anderson released on BMGs World Circuit label - are taking the orchestra's work directly into the homes of millions across the globe.
Paraorchestra is the only orchestra in the world pro-actively increasing its representation and professional development of deaf, disabled and neurodivergent players. Embedded alongside its ambition to provide meaningful opportunities for world-class music making, Paraorchestra's artist development programme - Modulate - provides opportunities for disabled musicians to develop skills and advance their careers. In doing so, Paraorchestra is removing the barriers that prevent disabled players from performing at the highest level.
Paraorchestra returns to Manchester on Friday 15 November 2024, when it will perform Henryk Górecki's Symphony No 3, Op 36, known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Conducted by Charles Hazlewood and featuring soprano Victoria Oruwari, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is a spellbinding meditation on loss and transcendence, recently performed in London.
Victoria Oruwari and Charles Hazlewood performing
Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Photo © 2024 Eljay Briss
Charles Hazlewood said:
We're looking forward to coming back to Manchester and performing at Royal Northern College of Music. Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is a dark yet glittering, hour-long piece, which people may be familiar with through film and television, if not the concert hall. It's profoundly moving, evoking deep emotion whilst being ultimately uplifting and hopeful.
Each of the three movements that make up Symphony of Sorrowful Songs features a Polish lament, exploring themes of motherhood, grief and the heartache of war. It includes a message inscribed on a Gestapo prison cell wall from a teenage girl to her mother, and a folk song about a mother who has lost her son in the Silesian civil war.
Victoria Oruwari and Charles Hazlewood performing performing Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Photo © 2024 Eljay Briss
Paraorchestra will also perform Gustav Mahler's appropriation of Franz Schubert's String Quartet No 14 in D minor, D 810 (Death and the Maiden), arranged for string orchestra.
The show then goes to Dublin, where it will perform at the National Concert Hall on Saturday 30 November 2024.
Further information: paraorchestra.com
Posted 15 October 2024 by Keith Bramich
