Worthing Symphony Orchestra’s 2023/24 Season opens with an outstanding work from a remarkable British composer.

Programme:
Saint-Saëns - Carnival of the Animals
Richard Blackford - The Great Animal Orchestra
Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the BumbleBee
Beethoven - Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral’

Richard Blackford’s The Great Animal Orchestra is a Symphony for orchestra and wild soundscapes. It was inspired by the composer hearing extracts from Bernie Krause’s book The Great Animal Orchestra read on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’ programme. Bernie Krause talked of ‘biophony’: the collective voices generated by the organisms in a given natural habitat and time, and he likened these layers of sounds to the layers and textures of an orchestra. Consequently, Richard Blackford integrated some of these extraordinary sounds into an orchestral palette to create a concerto for animals and orchestra. Animals include Bearded Arctic Seals, Humpback Whales, Pacific Tree Frogs, Crickets, Hyrax, Beaver, African Forest Elephants, Mountain Gorillas and Gibbons.

Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals contains some of the most exquisite and much-loved music of all time including ‘The Swan’. Meanwhile, dazzling in its virtuosity, The Flight of the BumbleBee needs little introduction.

Beethoven loved walking in the countryside and his Pastoral Symphony (No. 6), memorably used by Walt Disney in the original Fantasia movie, is full of the sounds of nature, including bird calls and a thunderstorm.

From Tue 25 July -Tickets available online
Tue 25th July, 12pm - Individual Shows on sale to WSO Members only (Members will receive code)
Fri 28th July, 12pm - Individual Shows on general sale