About the orchestra

The "Crowthorne Chamber Orchestra" was formed in 1991 by a group of players who decided to "go it alone", having previously played as an evening class at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell - though its origins go back to the early 1970's.

The orchestra has been fortunate to have had a number of distinguished musical directors. Our first was Harold Kershaw, who was followed by Kevin Purcell and later by William Webb. Anthony Davie held the post for nearly 9 years and our current musical director, Robert Roscoe, joined us in early 2007.

Over recent years, the orchestra has played a broad repertoire including symphonies of Beethoven (5 so far), Haydn, Schubert, Dvorak, Mendelssohn and Bizet, and also various concertos and classical overtures plus a balance of lighter works. It was agreed that as our repertoire became more adventurous we should reconsider the orchestra's title. As a result "The Crowthorne Orchestra" came into being in 2000.

We have also been fortunate that several well-known soloists have been able to support us in recent concerts. We would particularly like to thank Matthew Mills on piano, and Jonathan Stone and Efi Christodoulou both on violin for their recent contributions. We also gratefully acknowledge the past involvement of Sergei Dukachev (piano) and Fa-Fa Jin (cello).

We have played in a number of venues in the area, including St Paul's Church Wokingham, St John's Church in Crowthorne, and Windsor Parish Church (along Windsor High Street). However our favourite has been the Old Gym at Wellington College in Crowthorne where most of our recent concerts have taken place. We would like to take the opportunity to thank Wellington College for allowing us to use their facilities.

Crowthorne Orchestra is primarily self-funding, and we exist comfortably on income from subscriptions and concert takings. We realise that not everyone finds paying membership fees easy on the bank balance, and so concessions are available for students and in other exceptional circumstances.

Each year, at the end of the Summer holidays, the orchestra organises a workshop and invites in additional players so that we can, for a day, play through larger-scale pieces for fun. In 2003, the Crowthorne Orchestra Workshop included the Karelia Suite and Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5; in 2004 we played Shostakovich's 5^th symphony, in 2005 Rachmaninov's 2^nd symphony and in 2006 Brahms' 2^nd symphony.

The orchestra members are a happy bunch who make music for enjoyment's sake. As a result, there is a strong social element to being a member of the Crowthorne Orchestra, and we regularly meet informally outside the rehearsal room. For example, skittles evenings are a favourite at the end of the Christmas Term, not to mention the regular after-rehearsal visits to the pub...