Henley Symphony Orchestra’s spring concert at The Hexagon in Reading last Sunday offered the prospect of a rare encounter with the world’s pre-eminent percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennie, under HSO’s latest guest conductor, Jacques Cohen. Neither disappointed in an enticing amalgam of the unknown and the familiar, including Konzertstück for Snare Drum and Orchestra by Áskell Másson, Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra by Eric Ewazen, Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.
[…] [The overture] set a quality benchmark which Dame Evelyn Glennie more than equalled. What she achieved in the Másson with two sticks and a snare drum was remarkable ̶ complex permutations of strikes on different parts of the instrument and huge variations in volume. The ability to sustain long crescendos and diminuendos was impressive, especially in the acrobatic cadenza. Her pyrotechnics were complemented by the quality of HSO’s percussion department.Henley Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Jacques Cohen
The Hexagon, Reading
22 March 2015