Accent on Youth Summer Concert

If you want to hear what an oxymoron sounds like musically, then come to our next concert! We’re opening in 1670 with Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Middle-Class Aristocrat) the music for which was composed by Jean Baptiste Lully. The title is an oxymoron, as a “gentleman” was by definition nobly born, and so there was no such thing as a bourgeois gentleman.

We leap forward to 1872 with our next piece — Saint-Saëns cello concerto. Many composers including Shostakovich and Rachmaninov, considered this concerto to be the greatest of all cello concertos; and it is one of Yo-Yo Ma’s five “Great Cello Concertos”. Our soloist tonight is a local up and coming cellist, James Hindle who is currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music under Hannah Roberts.

1910 is the year Ravel penned the orchestrated version of his ‘Pavane pour une infante defunte', which he described as something “a little princess might have danced at the Spanish court” — the pavane being a slow court dance from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Then on to 1947 for our last piece which was composed by Francis Poulenc on a commission from the BBC. This four movement Sinfonietta is light and easy on the ear and full of dance rhythms.

Our Accent on Youth concert is actually a double whammy. Whilst the title primarily refers to our soloist, it also applies to tonight’s guest conductor John Lyon, who is based in Sheffield and is the principal conductor for the Leeds Symphony Orchestra.

Please come and support both James and John as they embark on their music careers.