The Oxford University Orchestra Tours Italy

The premier student ensemble of the University of Oxford will tour Northern Italy in March 2024. The programme includes five orchestral concerts, an open rehearsal for schools, and a chamber music concert.

During the week-long tour, the orchestra, consisting of roughly 60 players alongside guest conductor Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey, will perform in Milan, Bergamo, Cremona, Bologna, and Parma.

Save the date in Milan for Sunday 10th of March at 6pm in the Aula Magna, University of Milan, where the orchestra will play in the season of the professional ensemble based at the university, Orchestra UNIMI, dedicated to the celebrations of the centenary of the Milanese university (find out more).

On March 11, selected chamber ensembles of the orchestra will perform to the residents of the Casa di Riposo G. Verdi in Milan, a private afternoon event dedicated to the audience of the historic Milanese care home founded by the great opera composer, who is buried there.

On Tuesday 12th of March, the orchestra will travel to Bergamo, together with Brescia City of Culture 2023, for a symphonic concert dedicated to the victims of Covid-19, scheduled at 8pm in the magnificent Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore (find out more). The immense Basilica in the ‘Città Alta’ will resound with the melodies of two great Romantic composers, like in Milan: the famous Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms and Romeo and Juliet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the latter chosen for being a musical representation of the Italian setting of one of William Shakespeare’s best-known plays.

Double show at Cremona at the 18th-century Teatro A. Ponchielli on Wednesday 13 March: in the morning at 10.30am rehearsal open to middle and high school students, part of the ‘Oltre I Banchi’ (‘Beyond the Desks’) project; in the evening at 8.30pm, concert in the music season of the theatre (find out more). The evening concert will include two premieres: the first Italian performance of the Second Symphony by Ruth Gipps, an English composer of the 20th century, and the world premiere of a new commission by Giulia Monducci, Italian composer and Oxford alumna, composer of a short piece entitled Sŏlum on the theme of environmental sustainability and climate change.

On March 15 at 8pm at the Auditorium Manzoni in Bologna, there will be a performance that will see the Oxford University Orchestra, guest of the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Bologna, share the stage with the Choir of the Collegium Musicum of the University of Bologna in a performance of Edward Elgar’s From the Bavarian Highlands, as well as replicas of Brahms and Monducci (find out more).

Grand finale at the Auditorium Paganini in Parma on the 16th of March at 8.30pm. The hall designed by renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano will once again resound with the music of Monducci, Tchaikovsky, Gipps, and Brahms in an extraordinary concert in collaboration with La Toscanini (find out more).

 

The Oxford University Orchestra

Since 1958, the Oxford University Orchestra has provided world-class opportunities for the most talented players at the university and enjoys great public acclaim among the university community, the people of the Oxford area, and beyond. As the flagship ensemble of the Oxford University Music Society, it selects its instrumentalists from the best the university has to offer, including many former members of the National Youth Orchestras of Great Britain, the United States, Wales and Scotland, and finalists of the celebrated BBC Young Musician competition that annually awards artists destined for great international careers.

The orchestra includes members from across the university community: from undergraduates to staff; music students and other subjects; British and international students and members from any socioeconomic background. Funded by ticket sales, the Oxford University Music Society, and generous philanthropists and private donors, it is committed to presenting ambitious programmes of considerable cultural interest. Every term, the orchestra performs in Oxford’s seventeenth-century Sheldonian Theatre. Recent programs have included works such as Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony, and Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony. The orchestra has collaborated with conductors such as Daniel Harding, Sir Roger Norrington, Peter Stark, Jan Latham-Koenig, and Ben Palmer. Among its artistic supporters, the orchestra prides itself with the presence of big names such as Steven Isserlis, Midori and Ian Bostridge.