Oswestry Sinfonia’s Jubilee Season was marked with several special events, all reflecting different aspects of Oswestry Sinfonia’s commitment to music-making over the past 25 years.

In June 2004 they were invited to provide the music for a “Fireworks & Lasers Spectacular” hosted by Adcote School, near Shrewsbury – another “first” for the orchestra.

In November 2004 the orchestra provided the opportunity for a local composer to take the limelight in a performance of two new works.  The concert began with a spirited performance of the well-known over­ture “The Wasps” by Vaughan Williams, after which the audience was intro­duced to Canadian composer, Mel Mclntyre, who was present to hear the first perfor­mance of his two works: “Three Tableaux for Orchestra” and “Missa Brevis”, the latter performed with Shrewsbury Cantata Choir.
The first half of the concert finished with a performance of the “Brass Cats Suite” by Chris Hazell which depicts the characters of four cats from a Wordsworth poem.
The concert concluded with a performance of Elgar’s “Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma)”

History:  2004-2005

In June 2005, following the success of the first venture, Adcote School invited Oswestry Sinfonia to give a second Fireworks& Lasers Concert in their grounds.  This was even more spectacular than the first and had a distinct “VE Celebration” theme.
A mix of popular classics including Viennese favourites, Henry Wood’s “Fantasia on British Sea Songs” and both “Mars” and “Jupiter” from The Planets Suite by Holst were juxtaposed with ‘Music from the Movies’:  the title themes from “The Dambusters”, “The Great Escape” and “Where Eagles Dare”.

In contrast, there were operatic favourites from Verdi and Gounod and items familiar from the “Last Night of The Proms”.
A grand finale of lasers and fireworks accompanied the playing of “Mars” from Holst’s “The Planets”, a tremendous blend of sound and light  – but one that was also a reminder of the devastation of war and a fitting end to the evening.

What the critics said...

McIntyre’s Three Tableaux for Orchestra was composed during the winter of 2003-4 from an idea for a ballet.  After the initial mild shock of the first movement...it soon became clear that the composer knew exactly what he was doing and there were some interesting developments in the fast-slow-fast pattern of the three movements.
In Elgar's Enigma Variations ,the tone of the Sinfonia strings was excellent...Many solo passages for the woodwind were excellently managed...The Brass were brilliant throughout.....The Bulldog variation (No. 11) was exciting, but the nobility of Nimrod and the Finale were thrilling indeed.

With the 25th Anniversary Season completed, Oswestry Sinfonia’s ongoing commitment to providing opportunities for local musicians to display their talents continued, and the first concert of the new year (April 2005)  provided a showcase for  Mike Sheehan, the orchestra’s principal horn player.
He was the soloist in a performance of Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto (K495).  Widely acknowledged as one of the hardest orchestral instrument to master, the sound of the French Horn was particularly suited to the warm acoustic of Holy Trinity Church, Oswestry, the venue for the concert on this occasion.  Another ‘first’ for the orchestra was the performance of Dvorak’s 7th Symphony.  Performances of Symphonies No. 8 & 9 have become part of the Sinfonia’s repertoire over the past few years, but this was an opportunity to hear the less well-known, but no less lyrical 7th.
The whole concert comprised: -
Verdi  –  Overture: “La Forza del Destino”
Mozart  –  Horn Concerto No. 4 (K495)   Soloist:  Michael Sheehan
Dvorak  –  Symphony No. 7