This concert will be the first of our major Watford Colosseum concerts celebrating seventy five years of performance by the Watford Philharmonic.

An English Celebration echoes programme for the society’s inaugural concert in 1935 under the baton of Sir Henry Wood.

That concert, which was part of the George V Silver Jubilee celebrations, featured music by Elgar, Delius, and Holst, all of whom had died the previous year.

Our November concert features works by those same three composers.  Some of the items in this concert are very well known, others less so – but in all cases, they are wonderful pieces of music.

Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1’ will set the evening off to a rousing start, and there will be no attempt to resist the temptation to sing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ in the appropriate place.

The work by Frederick Delius is a gentle setting for baritone solo, choir and orchestra of a poem by Walt Whitman.  James Oldfield will be returning to the Colosseum once again to sing the solo part in this lovely work.
Gustav Holst’s suite ‘The Planets’ is still one of the most popular concert works.  We shall be performing two sections – ‘Mars – the Bringer of War’, and ‘Jupiter – the Bringer of Jollity’

‘The Music Makers’ is one of Elgar’s larger choral works and is a setting of a poem about the dreams of an artist, and is probably the origin of the expression ‘movers and shakers’.  We welcome back the Mezzo-Soprano Rosie Aldridge to sing the solo in this beautiful, but less well knnow work.  Those in the audience with sharp ears will spot musical references to other works by Elgar such as ‘Enigma Variations’, ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, ‘Sea Pictures’, and even ‘La Marseillaise’.

As part of the 75th Jubilee Year celebration, there will also be a foyer display of historical material from the Watford Philharmonic Archive.  Perhaps you, or members of your family, feature somewhere in our records – come and see for yourselves!

Rosie Aldridge- Mezzo-soprano

Born in Hertfordshire, Rosie is currently a scholar at London’s Royal College of Music, where she studies with Kathleen Livingstone. As a sixth-form vocal scholar at Haileybury Imperial College, Rosie performed many different roles including, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas; the Baker’s Wife in Sondheim’s Into The Woods, and Carmen in excerpts from Bizet’s opera performed in concert with the College Orchestra. She also performed the role of Speranza in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, with The Opera Group. 

Rosie has enjoyed extensive oratorio and concert experience, performing the mezzo-soprano solos for many works including Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem and Vespers, Copland’s In The Beginning, Lambert’s The Rio Grande, Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra at St James’s, Piccadilly, Holst’s The Cloud Messenger, several Schubert Masses, Haydn’s Marie Therese Mass, Nelson Mass and St. Nicholas Mass, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater at the Cadogan Hall with the Brandenburg Sinfonia and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the Concordia Young Artists’ Foundation.

Rosie has taken part in many prestigious master classes with artists such as Dame Sarah Walker, Michael Chance, Stephen Varcoe and Patricia Macmahon. She recently won the R.C.M. English Song Prize and is also a Josephine Baker Trust scholar. Rosie’s recent solo performances have included Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Welsh Baroque Orchestra, Haydn’s Maria Theresa Mass and Duruflé’s Requiem in Chichester Cathedral with Jonathan Willcocks, performances of Verdi’s Requiem in Godalming, Eton and Oxford and a further performance of Elgar’s Sea Pictures conducted by Leon Lovett at the West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. Future projects include Elgar’s The Music Makers and Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Winchester Cathedral.

James Oldfield (Bass-Baratone)

The twenty-seven year old English bass-baritone James Oldfield was a chorister in Leicester before holding a choral scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Geography.  In 2006 he became the Sir Thomas Allen Scholar at the Royal College of Music, studying with Ashley Stafford. James is now at the acclaimed Benjamin Britten International Opera School, for whom he has played Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Nick Shadow in Stravinksy The Rake’s Progress and Forester in Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen. His studies have been generously supported by the Josephine Baker and Rosemary Bugden trusts. This academic year James holds the inaugural Independent Opera Scholarship, as well as a Sybil Tutton Award, administered by the Musicians Benevolent Fund.

James’ other operatic roles include Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Bartolo (Le Nozze di Figaro), Polyphemus (Handel Acis and Galatea), Achilla (Handel Giulio Cesare) and Simon Magus in Vaughan Williams The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Philharmonia; Richard Hickox). Last November he covered the role of Ormonte in Handel Partenope for English National Opera.

James’ recent concert engagements include Haydn Nelson Mass (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra); Monteverdi Vespers (London Handel Orchestra); a Purcell programme at the Wigmore Hall; Sibelius Kullervo (King’s College, Cambridge); Handel Samson (Orchestra of St John’s); Messiah (London Festival Orchestra); Tippett Five Negro Spirituals (Cadogan Hall); and Bach Magnificat (St John’s Smith Square).

James’ future engagements include Brahms Requiem (Albert Hall), Clito in Handel Alessandro (London Handel Festival), Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte (Clonter Opera), and Figaro (Garsington Opera). For further information please see James’ website: www.james-oldfield.com