Helensville War Memorial Hall
2:30pm Sunday 8 June 2025
Our first concert for 2025 features soloists Emily Rendall and Briar English performing Andante and Rondo for Two Flutes and Strings by the flute virtuoso and early romantic Hungarian-German composer Franz Doppler.
The wind section have their time in the limelight playing the first two movements of Dvorak's beautiful Serenade for Wind.
The AA Milne poem Buckingham Palace is an audience favourite set to music by Harold Fraser-Simson from "Fourteen Songs from When We were Young". Milne also wrote the unusual poem The King's Breakfast, which includes a dramatic introduction and a narrator (Miriam Croucher) who tells and sings the tale of a grumpy king who's upset with his morning meal.
The programme includes two works from the Covid years. Internationally acclaimed NZ composer David Hamilton wrote Pohutukawa especially for Leys Orchestra during the first year of the Covid lockdowns, and UK film and TV composer Debbie Wiseman wrote Together for people confined at home, encouraging them to play and learn a piece of music.
Music by Gershwin and Reinecke round out the programme, with Scott Joplin's well-known rag The Entertainer bringing the concert to a bright conclusion.
Admission is free.
Soloists
Emily Rendall and Briar English (flutes), Miriam Croucher (narrator)
Programme
Hamilton: Pohutukawa
Fraser-Simson: The King's Breakfast
Dvorak: Serenade for Wind in D minor (1,2)
Doppler: Andante and Rondo for Two Flutes and Strings
Fraser-Simson: Buckingham Palace
Reinecke: Kinder Symphonie (2)
Joplin: The Entertainer
Gershwin: Prelude II
Wiseman: Together
