EAChO presents: Elgar, Cornworth and Butterworth
Saturday 23rd January 2027, 7.30pm
West Road, Cambridge
Tickets : £25 adults, £22 concessions, £10 students, £5 under 18s
Saturday 30th January 2027, 7.30pm
Apex, Bury St Edmunds
Elgar Cockaigne Overture Op 40 'In London Town'
Korngold - Violin concerto in D major Op 35
Butterworth - The Banks of Green Willow – solo violin
Elgar - Enigma Variations Op 36
Conductor: Jacques Cohen
Soloists: Stephen Bryant
Leader: Jamie Foreman
East Anglia Chamber Orchestra is delighted to return to the West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge and the Apex in Bury St Edmunds with another exciting, romantic and deeply moving programme. Under the baton of Jacques Cohen, the concerts will begin with the joyous Cockaigne Overture by Edward Elgar. It presents a lively and colourful portrait of Edwardian London and is considered the composer’s best overture.
Erich Korngold worked in Hollywood during the second world war and his Violin Concerto draws on themes from his film scores. This lyrical concerto, dedicated to Alma Mahler, demonstrates his superb craftsmanship. Much to Korngold’s delight, our soloist, Stephen Bryant, gave the concerto its UK premiere in 1982.
The Banks of Green Willow is George Butterworth’s most popular work and is based on two English folksongs. This serene and beautiful work was written in 1913: sadly, the young composer died in battle on the Western Front.
Written in 1898-9, The Enigma Variations were an immediate success and established Elgar’s growing reputation internationally. The original theme and 14 variations are dedicated to “my friends pictured within” and portray a general impression of each personality and specific musical characteristics. The ninth variation, Nimrod, is played annually at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
Join us for a wonderful evening of inspiring music-making.
Critic quote: “The orchestra was in superb form, with excellent playing across all sections. A great evening at West Road with a first-rate orchestra. What’s not to like?”
Guest Soloist: Stephen Bryant : Violin
Stephen Bryant was born in Croydon and began playing the piano at five and the violin at six. At 18 he won a joint first study scholarship to the Royal College of Music, studying violin with Kenneth Piper and Hugh Bean, both pupils of the great English violinist Albert Sammons, and piano with Angus Morrison. He won every violin prize open to him, along with the medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, two Leverhulme Scholarships, the Craxton Trust Award and first prize in the Royal Overseas League Competition. At 24 he was appointed co-leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and since 1992 he has been Leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
“A truly transfiguring experience, the beauty of Bryant’s tone only matched by the purity of Messiaen’s expression.” (SeenandHeard-international.com)
A sought-after guest leader, he has led all the major British orchestras and others across America, Europe and Asia, working with conductors including Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Sir Georg Solti and Sir Michael Tippett. As a soloist he has appeared regularly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and has performed and broadcast concertos by Korngold, Delius, Goldmark, Khachaturian, Mendelssohn and Lutoslawski on BBC Radio 3. He gave the UK premiere of Korngold’s Violin Concerto in 1982 and of Detlev Glanert’s Violin Concerto in 2011, and the world premiere of Elgar’s Etudes Characteristique in 1987.
Stephen gives recitals and masterclasses in Europe, Asia and the US, coaches students at all four London music colleges, and is Senior Orchestral Tutor and Chamber Music Coach at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. He has sat on the panels of the BBC Young Musician Competition, the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and Help Musicians UK. In 2017 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Guild of Musicians and Singers for his outstanding contribution to orchestral music, solo performance and orchestral coaching.
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Jacques Cohen : Conductor
Jacques is equally known as conductor and composer.
Widely regarded as a musician’s conductor, he is Music Director of the Cohen Ensemble (formerly Isis Ensemble) and has conducted concerts and broadcasts with such groups as Kremerata Baltica, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Sofia Soloists, BBC Concert Orchestra, Albania Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, and Bucharest Philharmonic. In addition to professional orchestras Jacques loves working with young musicians, having conducted concerts with many of Europe’s top youth orchestras. He has conducted at the UK’s leading conservatoires where he has also given master classes and composition seminars, and is Principal Conductor of the Royal College of Music Junior Department Symphony Orchestra.
He has worked with many choral groups such as Oxford Camerata, The Shout and Lloyd’s Choir for whom he is Music Director. He has been Music Director on several opera productions with a variety of companies, and is a passionate communicator, especially renowned for his unique ability to engage audiences in concerts.
Jacques’ compositions and arrangements, published by Norsk Musikforlag, include music for choir, orchestra, chamber works and opera. Commissions include pieces for Dame Evelyn Glennie (Firefly), Onyx Brass (Concertino), Piatti Quartet, (From Behind Glass), Fitzwilliam Quartet (Nun danket alle Gott), National Youth Wind Ensemble (Pantheon), Tête-à-tête opera (The Lady of Satis House) and Lloyd’s Choir (The Denial of St Peter). His string orchestra arrangements, particularly that of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, are fast becoming staples of the repertoire.
His large-scale oratorio, Creation, was greeted with a momentous reception in the Barbican in 2023 as the centrepiece of the Lloyd’s Choir centenary, and a CD comprising his chamber opera and other works for string quartet (Tippett Quartet/Meridian) released last year met with uniformly excellent reviews. He has just recently recorded his song cycle Love Journeys with the Cohen Ensemble and soprano Susanna Davis.
Jacques read music at Oxford where he conducted the university orchestras and performed his own compositions. He was awarded the Conducting Scholarship at the Royal College of Music where prizes included the August Manns Conducting Prize, Constant Lambert Award, Janet Blacklock Choral Conducting Award and Tagore Gold Medal, the college’s award for its most outstanding student.
He went on to work with such groups as Bombay Chamber Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra (Assistant Conductor). In addition to numerous awards for composition, Jacques took First Prize in the NAYO British Reserve Conducting Competition and was also a Prize-winner in the Leeds Conductors’ Competition.
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Jamie Foreman : Lead Violin
