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University of Sussex Symphony Orchestra

Winter Concert 2024

Jean Sibelius Pelleas et Melisande (Suite)

Justin Hurwitz La La Land (Epilogue)

Antonin Dvorak Symphony number 9

Join us for a winter celebration of soulful orchestral melodies and the mesmerising, rhythmic and seductive music of La La Land, critically rated as one of the best films of the 2010s.

In 1905 Finnish composer Jean Sibelius composed music to a play by Maurice Maeterlink, Pelleas and Melisande. This is a haunting and atmospheric score. The opening Prelude ('At the Castle Gate') was made famous when it became the theme in TV's The Sky at Night, with its sombre and haunting chords conveying the sense of infinite spaces and distant worlds.

Our evening concludes with Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's Symphony number 9, written in 1893, while he was director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. Dvorak's symphony premiered in New York the same year - it has the pounding energetic rhythms of city life combined with highly expressive melodies drawn from African-American music.

University of Sussex Symphony Orchestra

Leader: Max Generowicz

Conductor: Ed Hughes

President: Jay Orpana

Treasurer: Song Songwutwichai

Welfare: Abigail Flowers

Communications Officer: Myisha Box