Janacek
Sinfonietta
Beethoven
Symphony No 9
Evans Theatre
Wilmslow
Leisure Centre
Tickets
0161 485 6887
| Kenneth Woods | |
| Mark Robinson | Peter Stallworthy |
| Stephen Threllfall | Mark Heron |
| Robin Newton | Martin Hardy |
Kenneth Woods
Kenneth Woods spent his teenage years as a rock'n'roll and jazz guitarist inspired by Jimi Hendrix. He studied the cello at the same time, helped found the Taliesin Trio and the Masala Quartet, and still performs on the cello. He pursued his advanced conducting studies as a fellowship student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and also studied at leading summer institutes and workshops around the world.
Already known in America as one of the most exciting conductors of the new generation, Kenneth is quickly becoming recognized as a major talent on the international scene. He has worked with many orchestras of international distinction including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared on the stages of some of the world's leading music festivals, including Aspen, Lucerne, Round Top and Scotia. His work on the concert platform and in the recording studio has led to numerous broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, National Public Radio, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is currently Music Director of the Oregon East Symphony, Surrey Mozart Players and Principal Guest Conductor of the Rose City Chamber Orchestra.
Since 2003, Kenneth has lived in Cardiff with his wife Suzanne (and their cat & dog). Future plans include a month in the USA with the Oregon East and Rose City orchestras, a cello recital, and concerts with the Surrey Mozart Players, Hereford Symphony Orchestra and Lancashire Chamber Orchestra.
Mark Haydn Robinson
Hailing from Bradford (birth place of Delius) in the heart of Yorkshire,
Mark was head chorister of Bradford Cathedral Choir and played cornet with a
number of top brass bands including the famous Brighouse & Rastrick Band.
The sixth generation in a line of musicians Mark studied music at the Royal
College of Music and the Universities of Huddersfield and York, graduating
with distinction and being awarded the Lawrence Turner Memorial prize. Since
then he has worked with various national and international ensembles and
extensively with the Northern Sinfonia, Cornelius Cardew Ensemble and more
recently the contemporary ensemble IXION (London). He has performed with
many leading soloists - Evelyn Glennie, Raphael Wallfisch, Christian Lindberg,
and Peter Donohoe and enjoys a busy freelance career as a conductor, lecturer
and animateur.
Further to conducting studies with the Albanian conductor Eno Koço,
in 1997 Mark completed a postgraduate year at the Royal College of Music studying
conducting with Edwin Roxburgh and George Hurst with observations of Sir Georg Solti
on his last visits to the RCM. He was awarded a scholarship to the Darmstadt
International Musik Institute, Germany, conducting Ensemble Modern, working with the
composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and studying under the Hungarian conducting pedagogue
Peter Etvös.
In addition to conducting, Mark has developed a successful career as a freelance
trumpet player, arranger and musical facilitator and this has led to his recent
appointment as Fellow in Music at the Tasmin Little Music Centre, University of
Bradford. He is also a lecturer at the University of Huddersfield. Interested in
contemporary music, he has commissioned and inspired several new works including
Alarmed and Dangerous by Christopher Fox (a symphonic documentary commenting on
the degeneration of our alarmist society) and Abnormal Loads by Joe Cutler
(about a journey across Europe in a small car!). Whilst in London, he directed a
multi-media arts project (celebrating the astronomer Galileo) at the London
Planetarium.
He is married to Catherine and they have two children, Emma-Eve and Zak.
Peter Stallworthy
Peter began studying the piano at the age of 7 and some six years later won a prize in the National Chopin Competition in London. He studied music at Kings College, London, with Thurston Dart and then at the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music) with Ryszard Bakst, where he was awarded the Ricordi prize for conducting.
Peter was the founder conductor of the Manchester Sinfonia. He has held several posts in the region, including conductor of the Royal Northern College of Music Chamber Orchestra, several choirs, and the Burnley Municipal Choir and Orchestra. He has participated in a number of conducting seminars with George Hurst and Maurice Handford, whom he succeeded as conductor of the Wilmslow Symphony Orchestra before moving to London.
Now back in the North West, Peter is becoming increasingly involved with choral and instrumental groups in the region and was appointed conductor of The Barnby Choir in September 1999. He is also conductor of the North Staffordshire Symphony Orchestra, an appointment he has held since 2002. He is married to Hilary and lives in Middlewich.
Stephen Threllfall
Stephen has been Director of Music at Chetham's School of Music since 1995 and has conducted its orchestras and choirs in their much acclaimed concerts and broadcasts throughout the UK and Europe. Their CD recordings include Mahler's Fourth symphony, Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, Handel's Messiah, Tippett's A Child of Our Time and Walton's Henry Vth - A Shakespeare Scenario and Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances.
Stephen studied with Sir Edward Downes, Wilfried Boettcher and Bryden Thomson and has also worked closely with Yan Pascal Tortelier, Jac van Steen, Benjamin Zander, Mark Elder and Vassily Sinaisky. His professional engagements include the BBC Philharmonic, Northern Chamber, Liverpool Concert, Northern Symphony Orchestras, Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra, Urals Philharmonic and Cordial Company Opera. He has appeared at many major venues and festivals throughout the UK and is a founder of the professional ensemble the Philharmonic Chamber Strings.
Stephen has a passion for educational, community and cultural projects both internationally and at home. This has led to collaborative projects in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Norway, numerous workshops in schools and has included recreating Sparky's Magic Piano for a performance at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall as part of Piano Fest 2003. He conducted the world premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' High on the Slopes of Terror with Chetham's Symphony Orchestra and this has now been recorded for worldwide release via the Max Opus website.
In 2005, Stephen produced the third outreach project for Chetham's, A Child of Our Time, commemorating the centenary of Sir Michael Tippett which explored issues concerning the welfare and creative responses of children today. This involved a number of charities, alongside arts and educational organisations around the North West region. Tonight's concert is given as part of his fourth outreach project, The Spirit of Norway Festival which runs until July this year.
Mark HeronMark Heron studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and the Royal Northern College of Music. Following a successful chamber music career with the Nemo Brass Quintet and freelance work with many of the UK's professional symphony orchestras, Mark's career is now focused almost exclusively on conducting.
His diverse musical interests have resulted in an unusually wide range of work: symphony, chamber and wind orchestras, contemporary music and opera all feature regularly in his schedule. Mark is also committed to working with non-professional and young musicians as well as professionals.
Mark works regularly with the Pori Sinfonietta in Finland, whom he first conducted in 2002. Other overseas professional orchestras he has worked with recently include the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Pärnu City Orchestra, St Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra and Kaiserlauten Symphony Orchestra. In the UK he is the Music Director of the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra and the Manchester University Symphony Orchestra and works with various orchestras and ensembles at the Royal Northern College of Music and at Manchester University. Future plans include the Nottingham Philharmonic, New Bristol Sinfonia and Hallam Sinfonia as well as education projects with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Mark has a strong interest in contemporary music. He has led several commissioning projects involving composers from the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Finland and United States and has over 20 world, European and UK premieres to his name. In April 2006 he conducted the European premiere of leading American composer Daron Hagen's opera Bandanna.
Alongside his conducting engagements, Mark writes regularly for a variety of musical journals and websites and teaches conducting at the RNCM, privately and for the Royal Air Force.
Robin Newton
Currently studying at the Royal Northern College of Music, Robin is a Peter
Moores Scholar. He currently holds posts as Music Director of new music
group e2K, Music Director of the Honley Choral Society, Music Director elect
of the Gorton Philharmonic Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of the
Manchester Boys Choir.
This season features appearances with the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra, the Gorton Philharmonic,
the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Boys Choir, the Honley Choral Society and the RNCM
Sinfonietta. Conducting venues include the Bridgewater Hall and
Huddersfield Town Hall.
Robin will also be conducting Strauss' Die Fledermaus as well as
appearing with the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme
including the Dvorák cello concerto with Natalie Clein.
In the studio, he will be assisting Gabriele Bellini in a recording of Ricci's
opera La prigione d'Edimburgo for Opera Rara in July.
Robin began his studies with Christopher Adey,later working with Mark
Wigglesworth at the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and David Parry at Opera
North, as well as taking masterclasses with Mark Elder, Zubin Mehta and
Gerard Schwarz.
Philip Mackenzie was born in 1970 in Bristol. Displaying prodigious musical talent at an early age, he had his first piano concerto performed at the age of 12, and by the time he had left school had won a string of prizes for composition and piano playing. At this time he decided to focus on conducting as a career, and was offered ajob as assistant conductor with the Beecher Symphony Orchestra in Oxford, with whom he toured England and Spain before going to university.
Having graduated, Philip took the Postgraduate Conducting course at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Odaline de la Martinez, Diego Masson and George Hurst. Whilst still studying, Philip founded the Amadeus Chorus and Orchestra, which is now recognised as one of the finest training orchestras in the country for young professionals.
Since leaving the Royal College, Philip has been appointed Principal Conductor of the Mathieson Chamber Orchestra, Musical Director of the Alternative Television Company, Principal Conductor of the Portobello Orchestra, Musical Director and Animateur of the Acorn Concert Series for Children, and Principal Guest Conductor with The Crimean State Symphony Orchestra. He is regularly asked to assist on instrumental and operatic projects by Lontano. In a lecturing capacity he has held posts at Bath Spa University College and Kensington and Chelsea College. Guest conducting work has been with the Swindon Symphony Orchestra and the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic in South Africa.
Philip has recently been appointed musical director of the Manchester Bach Choir, a post he took up in September 2001.
Martin Hardy conducted Wilmslow Symphony Orchestra for nearly eighteen years from 1982 to 1999.
The Wilmslow Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1947 and had a successful first thirty-five years, but it was under Martin Hardy that it consolidated its reputation as a local orchestra of high standards. His first appearance was as guest conductor of a popular family concert in January 1982 but it was a signal of the things to come that his first concert as principal conductor followed two months later with a performance of a Mahler symphony.
Under Martin the orchestra performed many challenging programmes for the audiences in Wilmslow, including Beethoven's Choral Symphony, symphonies by Elgar and Mahler and the ballet suites of Stravinsky. One major concert away from Wilmslow was Berlioz' Grande Messe des Morts, performed in Chester Cathedral with the Chester Orchestral Society and massed choirs from the area.
Martin made significant contributions in a number of musical spheres. After training at the Royal Manchester College of Music, now the Royal Northern College of Music, he played bassoon in the Hallé Orchestra for sixteen years, seven of these under Sir John Barbirolli. As bassoonist he appeared with the majority of the British orchestras and can be heard on numerous recordings of orchestral and chamber music. A keen interest in conducting had been born at college and blossomed once he became freelance. In addition to the WSO he conducted the orchestras in Chester and Blackburn, and the Camerata of Manchester. He made most successful visits to Poland and the Czech Republic and conducted a number of times in the United States, from Great Falls, Montana and Phoenix, Arizona in the West, to Penn State University and Atlanta in the East. He was also a member of the Board of the influential, U.S. based, Conductors Guild.
Martin gave great encouragement to amateur musicians, both young people and adults, through his workshops and his tutoring of many pupils on the bassoon. He was an excellent musician, dedicated to music and displayed a professional approach to everything he undertook.
Martin died, aged 61, in February 2000, after a short illness. It was typical of him that he conducted what was to be his last concert, in Phoenix, in mid-January. Such was his determination and courage to complete whatever he put his hand to.
The Martin Hardy Memorial Fund has been set up to assist talented woodwind students.
 |