From Mozart to sea shanties at Manor Pavilion Theatre, Sidmouth

ONE of Britain’s leading chamber ensembles, the Galliard Wind Ensemble, will perform at Manor Pavilion Theatre on Saturday, November 27, from 7.30pm, as part of the Sidmouth Music series of concerts.

The Ensemble was formed in 1993, when its members were students at the Royal Academy of Music and has since won many major awards, including BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists Forum.

The Sidmouth performance begins with Mozart’s overture to his opera The Marriage of Figaro, followed by Six Bagatelles from Georg Ligeti, written in 1953 and originally intended for solo piano, and Nielsen’s Wind Quintet from 1922.

The second half will open with Samuel Barber’s Summer Music. Then comes Percy Grainger’s Walking Tune.

In his Three Sea Shanties, Sir William Arnold provides an inventive and spirited interpretation of the traditional tunes What shall we do with a drunken sailor, Boney was a warrior and Johnny came down from Hilo. The concert will close with Luciano Berio’s intriguing piece Opus Number Zoo which, whilst appearing charming and fanciful, carries an underlying menace in the descriptions of a fox and chicken, a fawn, a grey mouse and two tomcats!

Tickets are �12 from the theatre box office and Paragon Books, High Street, Sidmouth.

They can also be bought in Ottery St Mary, Budleigh Salterton, Honiton and Exeter. For more information go to www.SidmouthMusic.org.uk or call Hugh Sutherland (01395) 514618.

Those performing are flautist Kathryn Thomas, principal oboe Owen Dennis, clarinettist Katherine Spencer, horn player Richard Bayliss and bassoonist Meyrick Alexander, principal bassoon with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra who replaces Helen Simons, also from the RPO.