Redditch Orchestra

The Redditch Orchestra is one of Worcestershire's oldest amateur orchestras. Founded in 1948 by Jim Price, who had recently been appointed by the County to teach violin in schools. Jim had been a professional violinist working in leading orchestras and playing under many great conductors including Beecham in the RPO. A group of keen amateur musicians from his travels into school formed the Redditch College Orchestra, named because it rehearsed at the college and eventually became an adult evening class. In 1981 John Graham, conductor of the Redditch Youth Orchestra, took over the baton. In 1985 the Orchestra left the college and became self-financing and also changed its name to The Redditch Orchestra. The Orchestra has had several other conductors, including Nic Fallowfield, Mike Bates and Russell Abraham with guest conductors being asked to conduct specific concerts. We welcomed our new conductor, Samuel Lellouch, for our 2022-2023 season.

The Orchestra is made up of up to 35 members. Concerts are held in a variety of venues around the county and occasionally beyomd . The Orchestra often performs a repeat of a concert in other venues and these have been in Pershore, Worcester, Alcester, Coalbrookdale and Birmingham. The Orchestra has on occasions combined with choral societies to accompany some of the great choral masterpieces, has made two concert tours to France, one to Belgium and one to Germany.

The Orchestra repertoire is varied but mainly comes from the classical, romantic and early twentieth century. The programmes are designed to be interesting and a challenge for players to rehearse, to attract an audience and to be financially viable. Our leader, Graham Longfils, is an accomplished arranger and often makes new versions of a wide range of repertoire for the orchestra's forces.

Soloists with the Orchestra have included, Alan Schiller, Frank Wibaut, Elaine Donohoe, Anup Biswas, Martin Milner performing standard concertos plus challenging works such as the Barber and Szymanowski violin concertos.