About Us

The Orchestra was originally formed in 1991 by a group of players who attended an evening class started in the early 1970s at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell. Anthony Davie took over as its musical director in 1998 and held the post for 9 years. Since Robert Roscoe, our current Director of Music, joined us in 2007, the Orchestra has continued to perform a variety of challenging programmes. To reflect the further progression in terms of the scale and standard of our repertoire, it was renamed the Crowthorne Symphony Orchestra in 2009. We should also acknowledge Gwyn Parry-Jones, who took over as Music Director during 2007/8 while Robert briefly relocated to Manchester to take up a teaching position at Chetham’s School of Music.

Our concerts typically take place at the end of each term at the Old Gym at Wellington College, Crowthorne. Each concert programme is varied and entertaining, and often is built around a theme, such as “Musical Tales”, or “Music for a Winter’s Evening”. The Old Gym was originally just that, but a high ceiling and chandeliers make it an ideal concert venue with a good acoustic. We would like to take the opportunity to thank Wellington College for allowing us to use their facilities.

We have been privileged to have been joined by a number of distinguished soloists over the years. These have included Ivan Yanakov, Matthew Mills, and Sergei Dukachev on piano; Jonathan Stone, Efi Christodoulou and Cerys Jones on violin; Fa-Fa Jin on cello; Lucinda Dalton on oboe and Giles Fowler on trumpet. Most unusually in March 2009 we accompanied Frances Jones in a concerto for alphorn.

We have also taken part in collaborative concerts with Hart Voices and with the Fleet and District Choral Society.

Each year, at the end of the Summer holidays, we hold a one-day full orchestral workshop that provides the opportunity to play in larger scale works under the baton of Robert Roscoe. Subject to vacancies, these workshops are open to all competent players and have proved to be very popular, with attendances of around 80 people. Over the last few years we have worked on Elgar Symphony No.1, Mahler Symphony No.1, Holst The Planets Suite and Brahms Symphony No.2. In May 2009 we held our first strings-only workshop, which included the Serenade for Strings by Tchaikovsky.

The Orchestra has about 40 regular playing members who make music for enjoyment’s sake, and we welcome anybody who would like to join us. There is a strong social element to being a member, but nevertheless rehearsals are taken seriously. The Orchestra is self-funding, and we exist comfortably on income from subscriptions, concert and workshop takings. We realise that not everyone finds paying membership fees easy on the bank balance, and so concessions are available for students and in other exceptional circumstances.