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17 January 2023

There’s just under two weeks to go until the Bardi Young Musician 2023 concert. 

Our Bardi Young Musician is flautist Joseph Geary a music scholar at Loughborough Grammar School who has been playing the flute since the age of 7.  He has recently been performed with the English Schools’ Orchestra and was previously a member of the National Schools’ Symphony Orchestra. He was selected as Bardi Young Musician 2023 following auditions in October, and is greatly looking forward to performing with the Orchestra at the concert performing Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 2.  His future plans include a performance of the Reinecke Concerto for Flute and Orchestra with the Loughborough Orchestra in June. 

In addition to playing the flute Joseph is also a keen singer and has a strong interest in early music. Alongside his musical studies, he is also studying French and Spanish at A-level. Joseph attained a DipLCM performance diploma from the London College of Music in May 2021 and is eagerly awaiting the results of an LTCL examination in flute performance from Trinity College London.  

Joseph is proud player of Miyazawa flutes and is delighted to be a Miyazawa Young Artist.

You can hear Joseph’s performance of the Mozart Flute Concerto in D along with Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony and more at Holy Trinity Church, Regent Rd, Leicester, on Saturday 28 January. A concert not to be missed!

Joseph Geary, 2023 Bardi Young Musician; Scottish scenery

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29 November 2022

There was a real buzz in the foyer for the first concert of Bardi’s De Montfort Hall 2022-23 Season.

A number of people in the audience were there for the first time in almost three years keen to hear Adam Summerhayes’ violin concerto The Fiddlers Tale as well as the Orchestra playing the ever-popular Mussorgsky work Pictures from and Exhibition and, as a curtain raiser, Sibelius’ Finlandia. Audience attendance at concert halls across Europe and further afield is slow to return to pre-pandemic levels, but we were delighted to welcome a good-sized audience who showed their appreciation of the violin concerto (a De Montfort Hall premiere). 

The orchestra were delighted to perform alongside a colourfully-clad Adam, normally their leader, in the concerto. One attendee at the pre-concert talk, when questions were invited, asked “where did you get that shirt?” – he was told it was purchased at Glastonbury!

Adam has been the leader of the Orchestra for much of it’s existence and to mark the collaboration between Orchestra and composer/soloist on this occasion there was a surprise presentation, to a delighted Adam, at the rehearsal before the concert of a special picture by professional artist and Bardi Board member David Calow. 

A sparkling performance of Pictures at an Exhibition, in Ravel’s orchestration, ended the concert and was received with very enthusiastic applause by the audience. The buzz continued as concert goers headed into the cold damp November evening.   

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18th November 2022

There’s a real treat in the Bardi Symphony Orchestra’s concert at De Montfort Hall next Sunday. As well as Pictures at an Exhibition and Sibelius’ Finlandia, the Orchestra are also performing ‘The Fiddler’s Tale’ a violin concerto composed and performed by leader Adam Summerhayes. Originally commissioned by the Helix Ensemble this concert marks its Bardi premiere and the composer described his piece as follows…

Whether this is a tale telling of a fiddler or whether it is a tale told by a fiddler, I am not sure – the narrative told itself as I wrote it and it seems counter-productive to try to describe it in words: the musical story is more subtle than my words can tell and seems to shift every time I play the music.

The concerto owes something to medieval music, to minimalism and to pan-European folk music. Parallel 4ths and 5ths are a feature as are ostinatos, grounds and homophonic melodies with primitive rhythmic accompaniment – the modal world it inhabits grew organically from these elements.

The music is in one continuous span in 5 parts. Parts 2 and 4 function as slow movements and part 3 as something like a scherzo. The first interlude meditatively prepares the space for the second movement and the second interlude is reminiscent of the traditional concerto cadenza. The first part sets ideas in motion that eventually culminate in Part 5, after which the postlude ties things up in a somewhat post-apocalyptic conclusion … a conclusion that returns the music of the beginning of the work … it could seamlessly go round on a loop …

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7th November 2022

In spite of very heavy rain outside, a good sized audience gathered in St Nicholas Hall at Leicester Grammar School for the annual Bardi-LGS concert focusing on GCSE Set Works. 

The audience was treated to several solo performances by talented young pupils from the school enjoying the opportunity of playing with a full-sized orchestra.  The Bardi players also enjoyed the company of around twenty pupils sitting alongside them to play in the Orchestra. 

The audience were kept on their toes with interactive questions about the music displayed on a large screen, with responses from mobile phones in the audience, as the programme was described by Amy McPherson, Deputy Director of Music at LGS. 

Oh yes, and in the photographs you might be able to spot Orchestra Manager Robert Calow, he usually plays in the clarinet section but it was his birthday on the day of the concert so we let him join the percussion section and he had a wonderful time playing the cymbals.

Our wonderful LGS soloists for the afternoon were:
Vidhi Thakor (flute) played the Badinerie from Bach Suite No 2 in B minor
Samuel Li  (violin) played the 1st Mvt of Violin Concerto No 4 in D Major by Mozart
Elena Bensi (trumpet)  played the 1st Mvt of Haydn Trumpet Concerto in E flat
Leonora Ashworth Jones (clarinet)  played the 3rd Mvt of Kozeluch Clarinet Concerto No 2 in Eb major
Sarah Inchley (violin) played the 2nd Mvt of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1
Arjun Kotecha (cello) played the 1st & 2nd Mvt of Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
Katie Bensi (saxophone) played the 2nd mvt of Milhaud’s Scaramouche Suite

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10th October 2022

The Bardi Symphony Orchestra kicked off their 2022-23 season on Saturday after being invited by Leicester Philharmonic Choir to join them on stage for their Celebration of Vaughan Williams at 150 at De Montfort Hall. 

The concert was conducted by LPC music director Stephen Bullamore and commenced with the World Premiere of What man is he by Imogen Holst, a student of Vaughan Williams, for small orchestra and chorus.

Willard Welsford and the Leicester Youth Chorus then sang Thomas Tallis’ original setting of Psalm 2, the theme of which Vaughan Williams later used for the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. The Bardi Symphony Orchestra string section then took centre stage with a stirring performance of the Tallis Fantasia.

The second half featured a powerful performance of Vaughan Williams’ First Symphony ‘A Sea Symphony’. The Leicester Philharmonic Choir were joined by a much enlarged Bardi Symphony Orchestra and soloists soprano Nina Bennet and baritone Andrew Davies.

You can next see the Bardi on the De Montfort Hall stage performing Pictures at an Exhibition on Sunday 27th November at 3pm. Find out more here.

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