2024-25

Thursday 14th November at 8pm at The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford University Orchestra and Rémy Ballot presented:
Schubert - Symphony No. 8 'Unfinished'
Ravel - Mother Goose Suite
Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade

in collaboration with Professor Martyn Harry at the University Music Faculty, and supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum

The Oxford University Orchestra was joined by celebrated conductor Rémy Ballot in an evening of some of the most enduring favourites of audiences and musicians alike.

Celebrated worldwide for his interpretations of the 10 Bruckner symphonies and much more, Ballot – the last student of Sergiu Celidibache – led the orchestra in a programme that takes the listener on a musical journey between Austria, France, and Russia, and across almost an entire century.

The orchestra performed Schubert’s famously (and mysteriously) unfinished Symphony No. 8, which survives in just two movements. The journey continued in Paris with Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye: originally 5 children’s pieces for piano duet based on a collection of French children’s tales. The tales continued with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, which evokes the ‘fairytale wonders’ of The 1001 Nights. A recurring solo violin melody portrays the clever bride who, with captivating tales of sailors and shipwrecks, princes and princesses, keeps her husband the Sultan under her spell.

Friday 22nd November at 7pm at the University Church, OUSinfonietta presents:

Ravel Pavane pour une Infante Defunte

Brahms Symphony No.1

Milhaud Le Boeuf sur le Toit

Mayer Faust Overture

with conductor James Norton