New London Orchestra - Adventures in Music

Peter and the Wolf

18 March 2009

On 18th March the New London Orchestra performed at The Stratford Rex – a nightclub in the heart of Stratford with a reputation for drugs and violence.

The family concert included Prokofiev’s classic musical tale Peter and the Wolf, with East London-born actress Michelle Collins narrating, as well as a programme of familiar and lesser known works – all introduced and presented from the stage by the New London Orchestra’s Artistic Director Ronald Corp.

The concert launched the Orchestra’s initiative to present a regular series of orchestral concerts in Newham, filling a niche for classical concerts in this already artistically thriving hub of East London.

Before the concert, in the afternoon, 200 primary school children from Newham and other Olympic boroughs (Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Greenwich) performed pieces based on ‘Peter and the Wolf’ which they had created in prior workshops with the Orchestra’s musicians. One class, from St Agnes school in Bow, also presented their piece in the evening concert.

New London Orchestra

Ronald Corp, conductor

Michelle Collins, narrator

18 March, The Rex, Stratford High Street

Concert Programme

Mozart Overture Marriage of Figaro

Faure Pavane

Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf

Piece created and performed by one of the participating schools

Martinu Serenade for Chamber

Orchestra

GodfreyDance No.3 (premiere)

CoatesBy the Sleepy Lagoon

DuncanMarch from Little Suite

Arnold Sinfonietta No.1

Programme

Opened in 1896 as a Jacobean-style theatre, the “Drury Lane of East” was then converted into an art-deco cinema in the 1930s. It lay empty for decades from the ‘70s and recently became a nightclub.