REVIEW: University of Chichester Symphony Orchestra: First Cathedral Concert, Chichester Cathedral

As the audience arrived in the nave of the magnificent Chichester Cathedral, all 85 musicians of the dynamic University of Chichester Symphony Orchestra – which had been founded only three years ago – were gathering, together with two male and three female singers, in its Presbytery in order to practice in this towering atmosphere.

Although their concert consisted mostly of modern or brand new music, their programme also contained a significant work which had been created by a notable British composer whose remains had been interred in a significant part of this Cathedral, in 1934 – Gustav Holst.

Having been appointed Head of Orchestral Studies at this University, in 2008, Crispin Ward enthusiastically assumed his conductor role by commencing this adventurous concert with Four Moravian Folk Songs, a recently composed, highly pleasant, work, which had been facilitated with the help of Crispin himself, after visiting a friend in Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. Like all those before it, the fourth and final song was highly melodic, but – much to the amusement of all those present – unexpectedly ended with a theatrical holler!