Surface and Shadow

What do we hear when we listen below the surface? Sometimes music says far more than first meets the ear.
Making his debut with Chromatica Orchestra, the orchestra’s newly-appointed Principal Conductor Oliver Cope has put together a programme of psychological suspense, Hollywood glamour and Soviet satire that reveals the stories hiding inside some remarkable music.

Bernard Herrmann’s iconic soundtrack for the film Psycho brings Hitchcock’s world of tension and terror to life, while Korngold’s sumptuous Violin Concerto, which marked his return to the concert hall following his war-time exile, transforms themes from his Hollywood films into a dazzling showcase for soloist Sarang Seohyun Kim, who celebrates her 18th birthday on stage this evening.

Instead of the expected monumental celebration of Soviet victory in World War II, Shostakovich’s Symphony No:9 delivers something altogether more mischievous: a compact, witty and wonderfully unpredictable work whose cheerful surface may conceal something rather darker.