7th August 2024
As we prepare for our New Horizons 2024/25 season, we have gathered together a selection of highlights from last season.
Sunday 8th October 2023, De Montfort Hall
A Celebration of John Williams
Imperial March from Star Wars
Flight to Neverland from Hook
Sunday 24th March 2024, De Montfort Hall
Grieg – In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt
Sunday 19th May 2024, De Montfort Hall
Mahler – Symphony No.1 in D “Titan”
See our YouTube channel for more videos from the Bardi
by Orchestra Manager, Robert Calow
The Bardi Symphony Orchestra’s origins date from 1986 in Leicester University where Bob Meikle encouraged a young student, Andrew Constantine, to form an orchestra to not only give him the chance to conduct but also programme forward looking concerts.
Count Giovanni de’Bardi was one such person in Italy back in the 1600s who had similar ideas, and taking this name as inspiration, Andrew formed the Bardi Orchestra and a performance of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony followed on the University campus. The first real Bardi concert was in November 1986 at the New Walk Museum Art Gallery featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
Chamber concerts were performed over the next two years mostly at the University, but the summer of 1988 saw Andrew Constantine planning a large-scale concert including Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony. The logical venue was St James the Greater and so on Saturday 10th September, the Bardi put on what is still remembered as a ground-breaking concert and saw the birth of a new musical force in Leicester. It was difficult enough fitting in the large orchestra and choir, but the concert started late because of the huge numbers attending. In the end many were sitting on the floor!
The all-Beethoven concert was complimented with the Third Piano Concerto performed by local pianist Simon Lebens.
Andrew then showed how he would be pushing new boundaries by repeating the concert in January 1989 at the Adrian Boult Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
The scene was now set for a series of high-profile classical concerts in the Bardi’s new home at St James. The summer of 1988 had also seen the formation of the Bardi Friends by Nicky Calow and Mary Moore, and the publicity was now being designed by graphic design studio Eikon Ltd where my brother David and I worked. David’s bold, colourful and dynamic posters stood out from other local ensembles and gave the Bardi a fresh new modern look.
Looking again at these posters, reminds us of what now seems very low ticket prices compared to today. And St Martins Records and City Music are sadly long-gone outlets.
Andrew always had the remarkable ability to invite high profile soloists to play with the Bardi in those days – Raphael Wallfisch, Tamsin Little and The Archduke Trio to name but a few. He also managed to talk Lady Evelyn Barbirolli to becoming our President!
By the early 1990s the Bardi had also acquired a settled Leader in Leicester-born violinist Adam Summerhayes who still holds the post to this day.
However, Andrew was still looking to make the Bardi something different in Leicester and in 1989 and 1990, a much-enlarged orchestra bravely hired De Montfort Hall to perform the Sixth and then Second of Mahler’s huge symphonies. It is believed that the Sixth Symphony was a Leicester premier.
There was now no stopping our Conductor and he planned ever larger events so by the mid 1990s, a move for the Orchestra to make De Montfort Hall their home was the next logical step. Record breaking tours to St Petersburg, Prague and Luxembourg followed, as well as a residency in Symphony Hall Birmingham on Sunday afternoons.
Looking back, the late 1980s and 1990s was an unbelievably busy period for the Bardi, but the Orchestra has never forgotten its spiritual home and over the following years has returned for some memorable concerts at St James.
Following on from the hugely successful, ground breaking tour to St. Petersburg in the Easter of 1994, Founder Music Director Andrew Constantine then planned an even more ambitious 12 day tour travelling by coach to eastern Europe, based in Prague, during August 1996...
Five concerts took place, two in Prague and others in Karlovy Vary, Marianski Lazne and in the famous Palace at Kromeriz. The Symphony Orchestra performed repertoire including the Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade together the Bruch Violin Concerto No.1, with leader Adam Summerhayes as soloist. The Orchestra rehearsed in the Prague Opera House and the extended nature of the tour meant that the players were able to also take in sight seeing in Prague and explore the various other concert locales.
Not being content with just a purely Orchestral tour, Andrew then planned for the Orchestra to be joined for the final few days by the Bardi Symphony Chorus to perform Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony. This was for Karlovy Vary, Kromeriz and then for the final concert on Tuesday 13th August in the Rudolfinum concert hall in Prague, the home of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. This high-profile civic concert also included the Brahms Double Concerto performed by the stunning Czech duo of violinist Jan Talich and cellist Jiri Bárta.
A much remembered party then took place straight afterwards for all concerned with everyone departing for Leicester on the four coaches in the early hours. One of the orchestra coaches then broke down at the Czech/German border, but that is another story…
24th April 2022
Edward Elgar is by some distance the most performed composer over the years by the Bardi.
The sheer range of repertoire is breath-taking including the large-scale Second Symphony, The Dream of Gerontius and The Music Makers all being performed twice. It is perhaps not a surprise that the Enigma Variations is the most popular orchestral work with three performances.
Of the two string concertos, there is only one performance of the Violin Concerto to date by the Bardi Leader of that time, Jagdish Mistry, in 1993. However, the Cello Concerto has been performed four times and also during the Bardi’s SaarLorLux tour in 1998. The Concerto also appears on the Orchestra’s first CD release in 1995 with soloist Leonid Gorokhov. Raphael Wallfisch was the first soloist performing the Concerto in 1991 for a charity concert raising over £3,000 for the Jaqueline Du Pré appeal. There is also a performance of the Sea Pictures song cycle but unusually with baritone soloist, Jeremy Huw Williams on that occasion.
The two popular concert overtures Cockaigne and In the South appear as do the Introduction and Allegro for string orchestra and the smaller String Serenade. ‘Last Night of the Proms’ type concerts have also included the Pomp and Circumstance March No.1, with perhaps the most memorable being in front of a 5,000 capacity audience at the EXCEL Centre in London.
There are also some real Elgar rarities with the Falstaff symphonic study, The March of the Mogul Emperors (from the Crown of India Suite) and (as performed to start this current season) the Bach Fantasia and Fugue orchestration.
Despite all of the Elgar performances over the years, one main work had eluded the Bardi – the Symphony No.1 in A-flat major. Sunday 15th May 2022 finally saw the Orchestra perform this epic symphonic masterpiece in De Montfort Hall. The all-Elgar concert also included the String Serenade and Cello Concerto with soloist Lydia Shelley.
8th April, 2022
During the 35th concert season the Bardi looked back at some of the highlights from the Orchestra’s three-and-a-half-decade history. In April 2022, we fondly remember the ‘SaarLorLux’ Tour in April 1998…
24 years ago this month, the Bardi Symphony Orchestra and their founder Music Director Andrew Constantine embarked on their third European tour, performing in Saarbrücken, Metz and Luxembourg. Performing at three esteemed concert halls, the programmes included Delius’s Walk to the Paradise Garden, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (soloist, Adam Summerhayes), and the Elgar Cello Concerto (soloist, Leonid Gorkov).
The Orchestra were accompanied on the tour by the Bardi Symphony Chorus who performed Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast in each concert with baritone soloist Jeremy Huw Williams. The performances of Belshazzar’s Feast on the tour were sponsored by The Walton Trust and the concert in Luxembourg was a distinguished occasion, marking the departure of the British Ambassador, Nick Elam.
The tour was a resounding success not only in the concert hall performances, where the Orchestra and Chorus were great ambassadors for Leicester and the UK, but also as a great opportunity for the players and singers, normally totally focussed on rehearsing, to spend some time socialising.
