Most ambitious concert yet in Bognor series
Roger Clayden is going for his biggest event yet in 12 years of bringing music to Bognor Regis.
His Orchestra Night on Saturday, October 9 at the Regis Centre will feature his 60 Minute Orchestra at 44 musicians strong compared to his more usual string orchestra of 16. It is a risk, a big investment, around £5,500, but if he can sell every ticket of the 350 capacity, then he can break even.
“That would be fantastic. That’s what we are hoping to do. We are hoping in the long run that we can get a run of this sized orchestra doing concerts during the year. Nobody knows until we try.
“But it is very much a family night out. You can bring your children, and for young children this is the perfect way to start to learn to appreciate music. There is nothing over the top; there is nothing too complicated.”
Mark Fitz-gerald will be conductor and Roger cellist and presenter. The French horn soloist will be Joel Ashford, a former principal of the National Youth Orchestra and Royal College of Music who has performed solo concertos with the Welsh Chamber Orchestra.
Act One will be Mendelssohn – Overture,
The Hebrides, Fingal’s Cave; and Ludwig Van Beethoven – Symphony No 7 in A Major Op 92. Act Two will be Richard Strauss – Horn Concerto
No 1 Op 11 (solo horn – Joel Ashford); Frederick Delius – The Walk to the Paradise Garden; and Franz Schubert – Symphony No 8 Unfinished D759. Tickets are £15 and £7.50 under 25s from the Regis Centre.
“This is the direction that I want to be going in. We have got some grant money left and so we are doing a concert on a much bigger scale. The thing about the orchestra is that it is about all the instruments and not just the strings that we have had until now.
“I think some people might be worried about coming out because of Covid, but there is nothing we can do about that. For two years we have not been able to do anything. The whole thing has been held back. I just feel that we should do this concert now.
“The Beethoven 7 is a wonderful piece. It is all about mankind carrying on whatever happens. It is a piece that we had to do, and it nice to have a symphony down here in Bognor Regis for the first time in… well, I don’t think it has ever happened.
“And I wanted to start off with The Hebrides. It is a beautiful piece. It is one of the most popular pieces in classical music, and we have just about got an orchestra big enough to do it. It is very, very popular. Mendelssohn wrote it when he arrived at the Hebrides and saw them. He jotted down the theme straightaway. For a lot of people, it is their favourite piece.
“We are getting together the size of orchestra that we should have all the time. You need the brass and the reeds. And we are doing Schubert’s Unfinished which was the first work ever written for the trombone.
“If we sell all the tickets, we will break even and that would be fantastic. I just don’t know how realistic that would be, but we have got to try. We have got to get back in there. It has been dead. People have got to get back out there and start doing things again. Bognor needs some sort of cultural events happening across the year, and this could be the first step towards that.
“And we need to be doing things where we can attract talented performers down from London and we need to be offering tickets that aren’t too expensive.”