Airedale Symphony Orchestra

Four years have passed since the Airedale Symphony Orchestra last took part in a performance of Carl Orff's elemental and hedonistic Carmina Burana at Leeds Town Hall. Reviewing that concert I wrote: "An inexorable rhythmic drive and a sense of abandon were the hallmarks of the performance under the energetic direction of ASO principal conductor John Anderson". Fortunately nothing much has changed in the intervening period; every section of the ASO acquitted itself with distinction last Saturday evening. The lavishly orchestrated hour-long piece is a good work-out for both the orchestra and the considerable choral forces required, but it is important to remember that Carmina Burana was composed for the theatre as a "scenic cantata" - to be danced as well as sung and played. This cannot be replicated in most concert hall presentations, but it is possible to engender a tangible sense of theatre - given the right combination of vocal and instrumental performers.

For all their appealing sweetness and freshness, there were too many occasions when the 220 members of the combined Leeds Grammar School Choirs did not possess the vocal heft to project the sometimes lewd Latin text across Orff's heavy and percussive orchestration; a larger proportion of lusty adult voices would certainly have helped matters. The soloists were accurate, but they lacked vocal characterisation: once she was into her stride, soprano Heather Watts did manage to inject colour into her musical line, and Ben Kerslake effectively projected the taxing high tenor part of the spit-roasted swan bewailing its mortality. But baritone Thomas Asher sounded too mellifluous and elegant to sing a tale of a planned seduction or to portray a tipsy abbot. I had to strain to hear him from my seat near the front of the gallery.

Before John Anderson conducted the flag waving Last Night of the Proms finale to this marathon concert, there was richly deserved acclaim for ASO principal flautist Oliver Wiggins following Cecile Chaminade's Concertino for Flute and Orchestra. Promising young baritone soloist Robert Webb sang Mitch Leigh's The Impossible Dream, Leeds Grammar School Choirs performed a selection from Les Miserables, and Heather Watts and Ben Kerslake delighted the audience with Caro Elisir sei mio, from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore.
Geoffrey Mogridge, Ilkley Gazette and Wharfedale & Airedale Observer.