Booking opens for Season Tickets only on Monday 9 May 2022

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General booking opens Monday 30 May 2022

Closing Night: Elgar's Second Symphony

R STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegel (c.15 mins)

CHERYL FRANCES-HOAD Cello Concerto (BBC Commission, World Premiere) (c.20 mins)

ELGAR Symphony No.2 (c.55 mins)

Laura van der Heijden, cello

Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor

Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s music has been hailed by The Guardian as ‘engagingly freewheeling’ so don’t miss her new Cello Concerto performed here by 2012’s BBC Young Musician, Laura van der Heijden; the youthful energy and commitment of her playing surely makes her the perfect soloist for this World Premiere. Elgar called his Second Symphony ‘the passionate pilgrimage of a soul’ and some people think it’s his greatest, the composer at his most vulnerable and revealing as its bouncing swagger gives way to music of haunting beauty and deep emotion. Our Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth closes the season with this huge work which just bursts with feeling – and links it to another master of orchestral colour, Richard Strauss. His hero, the medieval German trickster, Till Eulenspiegel, gets things off to a cheeky, prank-ridden start.