Notts talent to take starring roles in these forthcoming classical concerts

You can see Nottingham's Clare Hammond in the BBC Prom at the Royal Concert Hall on September 8.

Nottinghamshire’s historic first ever BBC Prom provides the perfect appetiser for the latest Nottingham Classics season at the city’s Royal Concert Hall.

Taking place from 4pm on Sunday, September 8, the BBC Concert Orchestra is all set to perform a programme inspired by Nottinghamshire’s legendary and industrial past, with another local hero, acclaimed pianist Clare Hammond, back in her home city to take the role of star soloist in Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini.

In a harmonious piece of symmetry, she returns to the concert hall where she made her concerto debut, as a teenager with Nottingham Youth Orchestra.

Also in the concert, to be conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing, will be Doreen Carwithen’s Men Of Sherwood Forest Overture, Lace Machine Music, a new BBC Proms Commission by Dr Elizabeth Kelly, who is associate professor in music composition at the University of Nottingham, plus Sibelius’s Third Symphony and excerpts from Korngold’s The Adventures Of Robin Hood film music.

After that, the Nottingham Classics 2024-2025 season will get under way on October 1 with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor John Storgards visiting.

They will perform Stravinsky’s groundbreaking Petrushka ballet score, plus two works for violin and orchestra – Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso and Ravel’s Tzigane – featuring highly-rated Jennifer Pike as the soloist.

The concert concludes with Saint-Saëns’s epic ‘Organ’ Symphony, with Jonathan Scott as the guest soloist.

Hometown hero Shekhu Kanneh-Mason will be the soloist on October 19 in the concert by Sinfonia Of London, with conductor John Wilson at the helm.

Jennifer Pike will be among the soloists in the Nottingham Classics season (Photo by Tom Barnes)

Shekhu will take the starring role in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2. The concert also features Kenneth Hesketh’s Pattersongs and Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 1.

There will be more local interest in the concert at the venue on October 24, when Mansfield’s award-winning girls’ choir Cantamus are involved in a performance of Gustav Holst’s spectacular orchestral showpiece The Planets, featuring the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Manze.

Mark Bebbington will be the soloist in Arthur Bliss’s Piano Concerto and you can also hear Walton’s Spitfire Music and Battle In The Air from the 1969 movie The Battle of Britain.

For more on how to get hold of tickets for these concerts, you can go to www.trch.co.u k or alternatively call the box office on 0115 9895555.

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