Summer 2011 Concert
The Royal Forest of Dean Orchestra is delighted to announce the programme and details for its forthcoming summer concert. The orchestra will perform once again in one of the area’s most beautiful buildings, the Church of St Mary in St Briavels, and will present a marvellous programme of traditional classical music, including Rossini’s mischievous Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers and Schubert’s rarely heard Symphony No 4, ‘The Tragic’. The entire second half will be devoted to Beethoven’s majestic first piano concerto when the orchestra will be joined by local piano prodigy, Alex Kirk.
Alex started learning the piano at the age of five. From 2003 he has been attending the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama under the Junior Music and Access Studies course, and at the age of fourteen, passed grade VIII with distinction. This pass was acknowledged by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music for gaining the highest mark in the region. In May 2010, Alex was awarded the Margaret Rose Bursary by Drybrook and District Ladies Choir in memory of their founder musical director Margaret Burford and earlier this year he gained The Herbert Howells Bursary . Alex was also a finalist in the Gloucestershire Young Musician and won the Cheltenham festival’s Keith Nutland award for best young musician. As an accompanist, he plays for the Forest of Dean Male Voice Choir and the Springfield Singers and is quickly becoming well known as a talented classical pianist, performing in venues such as Cheltenham Town Hall and Bath’s Guildhall. Alex was successful in auditioning for a place at the Royal College of Music in London where he will start in September.
The orchestra will be conducted by local musician, Alastair Cameron and led, as usual by distinguished performer and teacher, Ros Taunton. A spokesperson for the orchestra said, ‘we are all thrilled to be playing with Alex – the orchestra’s ethos has always been to promote local youngsters, particularly those who are clearly going onto great things and Alex is certainly one of those! We hope people will come, support and be inspired by Alex before he goes off to the Royal College of Music in London.’
