Carnival of the Animals

This event is generously supported by an anonymous donor.

Em Whitfield Brooks (Stage Director)
Simon Passmore (Piano)
St Cecilia Orchestra directed by Xenophon Kelsey

Prices

All tickets

£17

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Programme:
In a co-production with Swaledale Festival, Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra gives a performance of the romantic but rarely performed Wolf-Ferrari Chamber Symphony and Novak’s Baletti a 9 combined with a new dramatic interpretation of Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals by renowned director Em Whitfield Brooks.  Children from Boroughbridge Primary School are centre stage in this concert and closely involved in the creative process, which includes costume and mask-making and theatrical exercises.  The performance also showcases the talents of a young Northern pianist, 18-year-old Simon Passmore.

Artists:
Director, singer, songwriter and teacher Em Whitfield Brooks obtained a Drama degree from Hull University and worked as actress and clown in various theatre and circus companies in the 1980s before concentrating on directing and singing. She is founder director of Ryedale Festival Community Opera, now in its eleventh year, and her educational work has included voice teaching and performance projects all over the UK including The Sage Gateshead and Opera North. She recently directed two of the Durham 2010 Mystery Plays and The Mystery of Irma Vep.

Ripon’s renowned St Cecilia Orchestra, born in the early 1990s to celebrate St Cecilia’s Day with Ripon Cathedral Choir, is much more than just an orchestra. At its most spectacular it is an exceptionally fine and very large symphony orchestra, often working with top class international soloists and capable of giving high-quality performances of some of the most demanding large-scale works in the repertoire. The Chamber Orchestra, which is featured in this concert, is the professional core, and as a leading community orchestra works regularly with adult choirs and choral societies across the north of England as well as promoting its own chamber music concerts all over the north of England. The orchestra prides itself on its commitment to youth, both through its championing of younger players and singers and through its educational work, as evidenced by its collaboration with the UK’s outstanding student ensemble, Vacation Chamber Orchestras.