Sounds of the city

Thirty-five years on, Oxford's premier professional orchestra, renamed the City of Oxford Orchestra in the late 1980s, is continuing to do just that.

The orchestra has suffered a mix bag of fortunes over the years, including almost folding when its parent company was wound up in 1994, but things are now firmly on the up.

Events in the pipeline to celebrate the anniversary year include a concert with teenage opera singer Charlotte Church at Blenheim Palace on May 20, a charity event for Cancer and Leukaemia In Childhood (Clic) at the Sheldonian Theatre on June 10 and the release of a new CD. A concert at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, on May 25, which features music including Vaughan-Williams' The Lark Ascending, Haydn's Oxford Symphony and the Faure Pavane, is also being recorded by BBC Oxford for broadcast the following day.

Current director Lindsay Sandison said: "The Pro Musica was a pro-am band, not completely professional.

"Now we've got an enormous pool that we draw on and then regular players, so it was nothing compared with that.

"All of our principals are from within a 25-mile radius of the city and the leader, Leo Philips, lives here. We're a resource for the city to draw on.

"The last season has been fantastic. The more money put in, the more people get to hear about us." The Charlotte Church concert for the Make a Wish Foundation came about because the orchestra did a benefit for the charity last year. A concert for the Sobell House Hospice's Raise the Roof campaign is also on the cards for September 23.

Miss Sandison said: "What I like about doing charity gigs is it's a no lose situation for everyone. The orchestra gets work, the orchestra gets paid and the charity makes loads of money. I can't think of any better way of doing a concert, because there's the feel good factor."

She said, as one of the group's charitable gestures, the performers' fees for the Charlotte Church concert are being paid for from orchestra funds, rather than the organisers footing the bill.

Being approached by charities is testament to how quickly the orchestra established itself as a leading performing and touring force in the region. Within five years of its creation, the Pro Musica orchestra was performing concerts throughout the year

and regularly touring to other local towns , notably Reading, Aylesbury and Swindon.

Famous guest names with international reputations, including Nigel Kennedy, Simon Rattle, Jane Glover, and Julian Lloyd Webber, were among the visitors introduced to Oxford audiences.

By the mid 1980s, the orchestra had collaborated with the three world-famous choirs of Magdalen College, New College and Christ Church. It had also established a lasting relationship with the resident company at the Oxford Playhouse, collaborating in several important music theatre productions including Kurt Weill's Happy End, which transferred to London's West End. The association with the Playhouse developed further with the formation of a joint company, Oxford Music Theatre. This company presented, among other things, a nationwide tour of the first provincial production of the celebrated Tom Stoppard/Andre Previn Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

But success has not always come the way of the orchestra.

A tour to Greece in 1980 was nearly a financial disaster, when the orchestra was turned away from giving a performance at the Athens Festival because the Greek Musicians' Union was in dispute with government plans to re-organise state orchestras.

But the orchestra returned to Greece triumphant the following year, to play a televised concert at the Athens Festival in the shadow of the Acropolis. Fellow performers on the bill, which was seen by 3,000, included the Royal Philharmonic, the Berlina Ensemble and the Bavarian State Opera. This tour was supported by the British Council and the Oxford musicians were greeted in Athens by the British Ambassador.

In what the organisers believed was a world first in 1983, the orchestra, then still called the Pro Musica, set about performing all nine of Beethoven's Symphonies in a day at Oxford Town Hall.

The event, dubbed Beetathon, raised about 4,000 for orchestra funds despite a bomb scare during rehearsals, which saw the orchestra forced to practice on a nearby bench.

The suspect package which caused the evacuation was later found to be a small, white plastic container stuffed with pennies and cotton wool, planted by a man aggrieved at having to pay a 4 local parking fine to the city council. Bad luck was on the agenda later that year when Mrs Thatcher called a General Election for June 9.

The orchestra had a concert planned at the town hall for the same day, but had to cancel it as the venue was needed for the Oxford East count! It was quickly re-scheduled for two weeks later.

Miss Sandison admits that by far the biggest crisis in the orchestra's history was 1994, when the City of Oxford Orchestra's parent company was wound up owing an estimated 20,000 to the city council and 40,000 in performance fees.

"There was too much money being spent and no sponsorship coming in. It was just living on hope.", she said. She turned debts into action and took over promoting and running the City of Oxford orchestra, but said: "We only did little concerts, cuttings down on the outgoings and trying to build up an audience base. Once we were out of the red it was just amazing and then success started to breed success."

Looking to the future, Miss Sandison said: "I'd like to make more CDs and I would like to take the music out more and go further afield.

"We'd also like to tour more, to places like America."

The orchestra is also actively pursuing a long-term education programme, working with local schools.

The next date on the orchestra's diary is performing Handel's Messiah with the Magnificat choir at St Barnabas Church in Oxford on Sunday, starting at 8pm. Tickets are priced at 15 and 12, with concessions, and are available on the orchestra ticket hotline on 01865 744457.

*A new CD of Baroque music has just been recorded by members of the orchestra.

Recorded at Exeter College, Oxford, over two days the CD includes Vivaldi's II Gardellino, a Quintet by J C Bach and pieces by Telemann and Albinoni.

It is provisionally scheduled for release in July.

Orchestra director Lindsay Sandison said: "It's a lovely mixture of pieces by Telemann, Albinoni, J C Bach and co. "It's going to be a pot pourri of Baroque music." The orchestra will also be performing a Summer series of four concerts at the college during August and has concerts planned at the Sheldonian Theatre on July 27, August 19, September 2 and 23.