One of the UK's most gifted young violinists is to join Orchestra of the Swan for an afternoon of all English music at Town Hall Birmingham on Wednesday, November 23.
Tamsin Waley-Cohen will be playing Vaughan Williams' ever-popular The Lark Ascending and his rarely performed Violin Concerto with the leading chamber orchestra now in its fifth season as Artists in Residence at the Town Hall.
The concert will also include Elgar's Serenade for Strings and his Introduction and Allegro, along with Ireland's A Downland Suite, and there will be an opportunity to taken part in a pre-concert talk with Tamsin and the conductor David Curtis.
The same programme will be performed the previous evening at the Civic Hall in Stratford-upon-Avon, where Orchestra of the Swan was founded.
Tamsin Waley-Cohen, 25, has been described by the legendary violinist and teacher Ruggiero Ricci as “the most exceptionally gifted young violinist I have ever encountered” and by the Guardian newspaper as a performer of “fearless intensity”.
She will be playing as a soloist with a 1721 Stradivarius violin from the Golden Period of his output, which used to belong to the Hungarian maestro Lorand Fenyves and has been loaned to her indefinitely by a US-based trust.
Daughter of theatre manager Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen and his sculptress wife Josie Spencer, Tamsin's Midland connections extend to being the niece of Warwickshire racehorse breeder Robert Waley-Cohen and cousin of 2011 Gold Cup winner Sam Waley-Cohen.
She will be heading to the region after performing with her own Honeymead Ensemble in one of a series of concerts at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, before playing at the Gallery of 20th Century Art in Milan on December 4 and at King's Place in London with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips and cellist Gemma Rosefield on December 11.
Tamsin said: “I am really looking forward to playing for the first time at both the Town Hall Birmingham and Civic Hall Stratford with a beautiful violin from the end of the 'golden era' of violin making that produces a special richness of sound.
“Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending and his violin concerto are both great pieces of music that complement each other well with marked similarities in both their slow and lively movements.”
She added: “I believe passionately in an accessible approach to music making, especially in having a directness and dialogue with the audience, which I why I am especially delighted to be playing with an orchestra like Orchestra of the Swan.”
Tickets for the Birmingham concert on Wednesday, November 23 starting at 2.30pm are available priced from £6.50 to £19.50 by calling the box office on 0121 780 3333 or visit www.thsh.co.uk. Tickets for the Stratford concert on Tuesday, November 22 at 7.30pm, priced from £9.50 to £21.50, are available by calling 01789 207100.
