News and Reviews

Review: Sinfonia Viva's Residency Concert Audio Lens
Assembly Rooms, Derby - Wednesday 3rd March 2010

This year's Sinfonia Viva schools' residency concert abandoned the single-theme format of last year in favour of two self-contained halves.

The framework for the first half was provided by Viva's performance of Stravinsky's Danses Concertantes. With conductor Stuart Stratford they produced sharp, incisive playing, while at the same time highlighting what a beautifully lyrical score this is.

In between the movements of the Stravinsky, students from Griffe Field Primary School, Littleover Community School, Chellaston Foundation School and Derby College created an effective sequence of interludes ranging in character from the rhythmic to the sultry. What particularly impressed was the care taken not only over how each one led out of the preceding Stravinsky movement but also how it led into the next.

Part 2 was given over to Audio Lens, an entirely new piece developed by the students with workshop leaders James Redwood and Jack Ross. With the focus shifting between Viva, an ensemble of seven soloists drawn from the orchestra, and the students, Redwood and Ross created a score from initial workshop ideas that allowed spaces for the students' contributions. The result was highly imaginative and varied, in spite of occasional moments when it felt a little drawn-out.

VJ Glenn Millington with, in the second half, students from Burton College, mixed some inventive live visuals.

Review by Mike Wheeler