The string section photography throughout by Mike Harris

The joy of this Orchestra lies with its size. Local, but a full-on full fat complete ensemble with banks of shining bass – the French horns alone were impressive but only matched by glittering trumpets with trombones, bassoons , a wonderful array of forty or more violins violas and cellos double bass- and that is before you count in the flutes, oboes clarinets saxophones and percussion. And on the piano, Mabel Jones.

The orchestra on full display - Photographer Mike Harris creates all the vivid images below

Conducted by the deft hand of Suzanne Dexter- Mills and lead by splendid Susan Chapman, this a fully -dedicated ,skilled and studiously practiced - but essentially amateur – group of musicians. Yet it is nevertheless an orchestra with big ideas.

Richard’s, the musical therapy charity funded by the Orchestra

Whose notion was it to have a concert where the music played was all live ,where the composers actually bobbed up in the audience to take a bow. Imagine Beethoven as he gets out of his seat to acknowledge his latest oeuvre. We got no less with Edwin Sung as he took a bow for his gorgeous piece “ Carnet de Voyage Annalise” a tour des horizons in honour of his well travelled three year old. Crammed with delightful Scottish and Irish themes , to mark the places the family has visited – culminated in Music from his native Hong Kong – in Disneyland. Edwin played the trombone for the evening as a member of the orchestra And he’s a soft ware engineer.

Matthew Curtis ‘had never before heard his sophisticated composition ‘Welcome Back’. It was a joyous piece of gratitude for life renewed and a world restored – written to celebrate the end of isolation in the years of Covid-19. Already recognized as a composer of note , his Light Blue Suit commissioned by a CCO violinist Martin Harvey and premiered by them in 2014 . Welcome Back really conveyed the relief and freedom from the threat of illness. Beethoven expressed the same feelings of rapture in his Opus 15 132 .Beethoven had fallen seriously ill while he was working on this quartet in the spring of 1825. He inscribed his slow movement with the words, “Hymn of Thanksgiving to the Divinity from a convalescent; Matthew’s remarkable sense of relief mines the same sense of release. A superb piece wonderfully rendered by the orchestra.

Suzane Dexter- Mills - a superb Conductor

And there was a local feel last night. Compère Jan Menta guided us through the performances – with humour and pace Nigel Hass’ piece” The Lakes of Cold Fen’ taps a local legend of loss and despair It was typically a Cambridge flourish to have a narrator for piece about the doomed failure of Robert Scott in Antarctica Jonathan Shanklin did a brisk job on the accompanying poem An Antarctic veteran , the programme told us he had discovered the hole in the Ozone layer .I found this so casually modest for such a scientific achievement – and rather typical of the Cambridge approach to exceptional success, a quiet one.

Jonathan Shanklin scientific hero of the modern Antarctic

And to top it all, the proceeds of the Concert went to Richard’s Music Therapy Invaluable input with vulnerable children has been a triumph in their Histon -based studios and a film featured a touching recognition of this work from the father of one of its pupils

Local yes, but not parochial, this brilliant orchestra is vast in size and great in heart. Talented and ingenious ideas are their watchword. Look out for their next spectacular performance And if you had any doubts about that, the final number Danzon No.2 by Arturo Marquez played in the style of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra it was bold brassy and theatrical . We left suffused with the joy of its top level execution and a thrilling sense of energy. Well done.

Jul 16 CAMBRIDGE CONCERT ORCHESTRA - LIVING COMPOSERS AT WEST ROAD

Jul 15 NELL GWYNN - AT THE ADC

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