The Constella Orchestra New Year Concert

MOZART - Marriage of Figaro Overture
DELIUS - Two Pieces for Small Orchestra
STRAVINSKY - Pulcinella (full ballet score)

Conductor - Leo Geyer

Based in London, the Constella Orchestra comprises of some of the finest musicians from the UK's leading music conservatoires and universities. The orchestra aims to give students the opportunity to perform orchestral repertoire outside their institutions to a professional standard, as well as bridging the gap between study and the life of a professional musician. The London Student Newspaper describes the Constella Orchestra as one of the UK’s newest and most exciting student-led classical ensembles.

First banned in Vienna for its mockery of the aristocracy, the Marriage of Figaro has now become one of Mozart's most successful works. After writing many works for large orchestra Delius's friends managed to persuade him to write for a smaller ensemble, hence the work - Two Pieces for Small Orchestra. These include On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Summer Night on the River. Marking the start of Stravinsky's Neoclassical period, Pulcinella was his fourth Diagalliev ballet premiered just seven years after the Rite of Spring. Stravinsky wrote "Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible".