Anthony Payne

It is with great sadness that the Orchestra has learned of the death of our President, the composer Anthony Payne.  He was 84 and had lost is wife, the singer Jane Manning, only a month previously.

He is perhaps best-known for his astounding and highly successful realisation of the sketches for Elgar’s Third Symphony, though, as this obituary notes, his own compositional style was rather more overtly modern.  Our connection with him stemmed very much from the Elgar: Adrian Brown was an early champion of the work, and BSO performed it in March 2006 (alongside his own Spring’s Shining Wake).  Anthony and Jane were in the audience only last March when Adrian’s Elgar Sinfonia (which includes many BSO players) performed the Symphony in London – Anthony apparently mentioned how much he had enjoyed that performance only a few days before he died.

We were honoured that Anthony agreed to be our President and we will dedicate our Elgar Sea Pictures on 17 July to his memory.  And we will plan a fitting memorial in due course, maybe involving a further performance of the Symphony and perhaps another one of his many works.

Coronavirus update

Dear BSO concert-goers/supporters

We hope you are all well and have somehow managed to weather multiple lockdowns without live music! It is over a year since our last concert and, after several abortive attempts in the autumn, we can now be a little more confident about plans to restart rehearsals soon.

We are planning to present a concert at Langley Park on Saturday 17 July. The proposed programme is:

Wagner: Die Meistersinger Overture

Elgar: Sea Pictures (with Janice Watson)

Beethoven: Symphony No 5

In theory, the “roadmap” would enable us to present this as normal, with no social-distancing of either players or audience. But we are not banking on it! There would certainly be no interval. One option is to put on two performances (one late afternoon, the other mid-evening), with a reduced-capacity audience, so that as many of you as possible might join us.

If you have a strong preference for a socially-distanced seating arrangement, then do email us as soon as possible to that effect (chair@bromleysymphony.org). If you don’t mind either way, there is no need to respond.

We will make special, one-off ticketing arrangements known in due course, once we decide whether it will be one performance or two. We will email you and put an announcement on the website.

In the meantime, put the date in your diary!

with very best wishes,

Mike Ibbott (Chair BSO)

PS the 2021/22 season is likely to reuse much of what we had to abandon this season – keep an eye on the website for details later in the summer …

Provisional future concert dates for your diary

To be advised

Vacancies

We have a vacancy for a principal trumpet. Rehearsals are on Monday evenings in Bromley. Positions like these with an excellent non-professional orchestra don’t come up very often so please tell your trumpet playing friends and contact us if interested.

We also have vacancies for harps. Most other instruments have a waiting list.