Title:  Kensington Symphony Orchestra performs Walton’s “Belshazzar’s Feast”

Date:                                   Saturday 14^th May

Time:                                   7.30 pm

Venue:                                Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon CR9 1DG

Tickets website:                Kensington Symphony Orchestra | Fairfield Halls | Croydon

Box Office email:              bhlivetickets@bhlive.org.uk

Box Office phone:            0300 500 0595

Ticket prices:                     £12 – £28

Promotor:                          Kensington Symphony Orchestra (Registered Charity)

More info:                         KSO :: Concert on Concert on 14 May 2022

Contact:                             Jeremy Bradshaw  Jeremy.bradshaw@hotmail.co.uk

Contact phone:                 07770 544628

Details:

Kensington Symphony Orchestra, one of the UK’s leading non-professional orchestras, is coming to the world-class venue Fairfield Halls for the first time on Saturday 14^th May at 7.30pm.

The highlight will be Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast – a spectacular cantata for large orchestra, two brass bands, organ, chorus and baritone solo.  It tells the tale of the Jews’ exile in Babylon, King Belshazzar’s great feast, the sinister “writing on the wall” and Belshazzar’s assassination, and the Jews’ rejoicing at their freedom.  Walton was a rising young star when he wrote this “earthy portrayal of pagan revels, violent retribution and triumphant jubilation” in 1931; it is considered one of the finest pieces of English 20^th century music. 

Also in the programme are Sibelius’s ever-popular tone poem Finlandia (a patriotic protest against Russian domination and censorship) and his suite Scènes historiques.   The programme opens with Richard Strauss’s Festliches Präludium – a fabulously rich work composed for the opening of the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1913. 

Described as “one of the very best amateur groups in the country” by Classical Music magazine, KSO has been hailed by Classical Source for “putting on bold, adventurous programmes that few of the ‘big five’ in London would either think of or get away with”.