Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Sergio Mims: Bristol247.com: Review: Chineke! Orchestra, St George’s ["an electrifying evening of music."]

Chineke! Orchestra

Sergio A. Mims writes:

The Chineke! Orchestra has gotten another rave review this time for their Sunday April 15th concert in St. George's in Bristol


By Charlotte Perkins, Monday Apr 16, 2018

Chineke! Orchestra dazzled at their long-awaited return to St George’s with an electrifying evening of music.
Samuel Colridge-Taylor’s Romance in G was a gorgeous contrast. The orchestra played with extraordinary depth and personality, but soloist Sofia Roldán Cativa blew them out of the water. The violin was soft and expressive with characterful playfulness and lingering passages of incredible maturity and richness. A sweet solo moment in the lowest register of the instrument was particularly sublime, the lines blurring between one note and the next. Roldán Cativa and the ensemble had fire, too – passionate driving music that soared and faded into lilts of tone and effortless sweeping lines that held the audience in rapture until the final note.


Daniel Kidane’s newly commissioned work Dream Song heard the voice of Martin Luther King through the medium of baritone Roderick Williams. The modern, clashing urgency behind the music had almost an angry undertone, which Williams’ extraordinarily powerful voice cut through, booming the famous words of ‘I had a dream’ through the clutter of noise. The rhythmic complexity of the music was almost overwhelming, but Chineke! performed the stark and solemn work with exacting precision.

Every moment of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 was impeccable – not only perfectly played, but beautifully, joyfully expressed. The enthusiasm of conductor Anthony Parnther spread like fire through the ensemble: here there was no pretension, no expectation, just the simple pleasure of performing– and who knew that Beethoven was so joyful.

It was a triumph of a performance, the link between conductor and ensemble so strong and precise it gave the entire work a new lease of life.

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