10th anniversary: Fantasia Orchestra celebrates with a busy summer featuring a return to the BBC Proms

Jasdeep Singh Degun, Gurdain Rayatt, Fantasia Orchestra, Tom Fetherstonhaugh – Smith Square Hall (Photo: Pablo Strong)

Fantasia Orchestra, conductor Tom Fetherstonhaugh, celebrates its 10th anniversary this summer with a very busy programme of concerts including a return to the BBC Proms, festival appearances at Cheltenham, Snape and more, and a premiere with Dame Evelyn Glennie.

Having recently joined forces with sitar player and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun at Smith Square Hall [see my review], the orchestra returns to Smith Square later this month for a jazz-infused concert featuring pianist Steven Osborne in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 alongside a typically eclectic programme featuring more DSCH, plus Gershwin, Rogers & Hart and Bartok. And their final Smith Square concert of the season features mezzo-soprano Niamh O’Sullivan in a surprising mix of contemporaries including Richard Strauss, Alma Mahler, Ellington, Kern, Gershwin and more

The orchestra’s first Prom (at St Jude’s) is more sedate with Junyan Chen the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 alongside Symphony No. 1. A Relaxed Prom at the Royal Albert Hall includes music by Dvořák, Vaughan Williams and Caroline Shaw, alongside arrangements of Radiohead and Duke Ellington, performed with the BBC Singers. Then a Late Night Prom sees them join with Evelyn Glennie for the premiere of Heloise Werner’s Wood Pigeon alongside music by Meredith Monk, Morton Feldman and John Coltrane, marking both Feldman and Coltrane’s 100th anniversaries.

Festival going sees the Orchestra in Cheltenham with Jasdeep Singh Degun for a repeat of their programme, they are joined by mezzo-soprano Anita Monserrat for a remix of the Strauss, Alma Mahler, Ellington, Kern, Gershwin programme at Guiting Music Festival, and they will also be popping up in Snape Maltings.

Full details from the Fantasia Orchestra website.