Polska Music

I'm back from a break and wanted to report in the blog how our Polska Music concert went. The day was busy as concert days always are for me, as I act as Stage Manager, Orchestra Manager, Box Office Assistant, Front-of-House representative and general ambassador for the Orchestra at all times! However all the running around from front to back stage was well worth it, we had a great turn out and the concert was a great success musically. Our UK premiere of Grazyna's Bacewicz's Simfonietta went down particularly well, and we sold plenty of preview copies of our Music for String Orchestra by Bacewicz, due for release on the 1st November, proving her music really is popular and should be played a lot more than it is. Hopefully our CD and this performance will prove a turning point for her works in this country.

Whilst front-of-house I met some of the audience members, many of whom were new to both Cadogan Hall, and New London Orchestra concerts. It's great to hear first hand how people hear about our concerts and what they enjoy about them, particularly with my 'marketing' hat on (did I mention I do that as well?!). Everyone loved Ron's introductions to the music, something we know he's excellent at doing to give the music some context. I always try to give the pieces we perform as much background information in the programme notes I put together too, and if you were there, I hope you found them informative. Everyone was surprised when we offered the programme booklets for free to our audience members - something we do at all our own promotion concerts. We think it's important our audiences get to understand the music and find out as much about us as they can whilst we perform to them, so it's vital to us to get this information straight into their hands!

There's a review of the concert on Music Web International, you can read it by clicking here. Quite rightly our soloists, Caroline MacPhie, Natalia Brzezinska and Gerard Collett, get a great mention. Got your own comments to make? Write back to us here on the blog, we love to hear your opinions.