Nottingham Symphony Orchestra's first concert of 2026 is packed with fantastic music as the latest treat-filled season continues at Nottingham's Albert Hall on Saturday, 7th March.
Conducted by Music Director Mark Prescott, the Orchestra will perform three excellent and richly contrasting works in the impressive surroundings of the Albert Hall. Welsh composer Grace Williams, once a student of Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music, was well regarded during her lifetime and was the first British female composer to produce a feature film score.Following a period of neglect after her death in 1977, her work is once again receiving long-overdue attention and performances. The most popular of her classical pieces during her lifetime was the four-movement suite Penillion, an appealing work written for the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, which will be launching this latest NSO concert.
The Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms is one of his most popular compositions, written during a purple patch of creativity which also included his first two symphonies, the Academic Festival Overture and many more pieces. One of the key works in the violin repertoire, it requires a talented soloist to navigate its many challenges and for this concert NSO is delighted to be joined by the experienced and accomplished performerGina McCormack [https://www.ginaviolin.com/].
To round off this concert we have Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony , an electrifying offering from the Russian great, operating at the peak of his considerable powers, and containing arguably one of the most exciting endings in the symphonic repertoire. Written at the end of the Second World War, it is highly dramatic, often cinematic in style, and a performance of this highly acclaimed piece is not be missed.