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Girthon Church - Gatehouse of Fleet
20 March 2005
Conductor - Geoff Keating
Violin - Jane Mawson
'Cello - Susan Beeby
Oboe - Sue Austen
Bassoon - Peter Hutchison
Program :
Haydn :
Sinfonia Concertante
Dvoràk :
Czech Suite
Ravel :
"Pavanne pour une Infante Defunte"
Poulenc :
Sinfonietta
Review of concert by David Thorpe, published in local press:
" The Solway Sinfonia conducted by Geoff Keating.
Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante was a courageous choice to open the concert in Girthon Church on Sunday evening, March 20 promoted by Gatehouse Music Society. The Haydn, easier to listen to than to play, was carried off with élan. Many of the audience were unfamiliar with this piece but most seemed to enjoy it. The Czech Suite by Dvorak followed and whilst some of the variations in tempo might have been a little less extreme, the whole piece was a high class romp. The furiant of the last movement, unique to Czech composers, might have been made in Scotland.
Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte was just beautiful, the conductor's tale about Ravel's crack: "It was the Princess who died, not the Pavane" led to the performance of a stately dance which was truly a dance rather than a dirge. Poulenc completed the French second half, his Sinfonietta, again largely unfamiliar. The piece deserves to be better known, especially in a performance like this, possibly the strongest in the whole concert.
We are fortunate indeed that the Solway Sinfonia is flourishing and one hopes that the performers enjoyed the evening just half as much as the audience evidently did.
It was an interesting anniversary too: ten years ago Girthon Church hosted a performance of the Faure Requiem 'from scratch' with an ad hoc group of musicians. One of the players, Sarah Berker, asked the conductor, Geoff Keating, if he would conduct the first performance of her 'Caerlaverlock Suite', written for the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust's anniversary celebrations. She gathered an orchestra of some sixty players in Dumfries who so enjoyed the event that they asked to continue to play together. So out of that small group in Gatehouse grew the orchestra as we know it today. "