Welcome to the ICSO website!
What a year it has been for ICSO! We sold out London’s prestigious CadoganHall back in December, performing Elgar’s ‘CelloConcerto with esteemed‘Cellist Raphael Wallfisch and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with the Imperial Choir. In February ICSO performed Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony as part of Imperial’s ArtsFest Week and was conducted by our own principal clarinet Chris Turner in Mozart’s Overture to the Marriage of Figaro. This was followed by two concerts in March, performing Stravinsky’s monumental The Rite of Spring. The first was as part of our annual trip tothe Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester. The second was at our own Great Hall, where we were also joined by soprano and ICSO flautist Naomi Mason who took us through a stunning rendition of some Strauss Lieder. We were joined by Pierre Doumenge and Corina Belcea-Fischer of the Belcea Quartet in our recent Summer Concert, who performed Brahm’s Double Concerto with us. We completed the programme with Shostakovich’s facetious Symphony No. 9. ICSO rounded off a fantastic year by performing at the International Exhibition Road Music Festival, which was followed by a suitably raucous BBQ!
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Anna Goyder and the rest of the 2008/09 committee for all their sterling work for ICSO over the course of what has been a fantastic year. The new committee and I are really looking forward to the challenge of continuing and building on their work over the coming academic year. I’d also like to say a heartfelt farewell to our members who will be leaving us shortly. We wish you all the best for the future.
ICSO has much to look forward to in 2009/10. We have been invited to perform as part of the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival in South Africa in 2010 and the committee and I are doing all that we can to ensure that this marvellous once in a lifetime opportunity goes ahead. Closer to home we have some fantastic repertoire to get through, and will be performing concertos with two of ICSO’s stars, Duncan Anderson and Shuang Wang. We will of course be visiting Dorchester again, with another potential weekend away, to the Dragon School in Oxford also in the pipeline.
If you’re reading this as a potential fresher, please do come and visit our stall at Freshers’ Fair. We’re really looking forward to welcoming lots of you into the ICSO fold this October!
Will Cowley
ICSO Chair 2009/10
