Nonesuch Orchestra Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary
Performing a ballet premiere of Cecilia McDowall’s 'Off the Ground'
Dan Shilladay to conduct. Picture:
Christine Bradshaw
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The Nonesuch Orchestra has been performing for over sixty years and it choosing to celebrate this milestone with a concert in Chiswick.
The collection of talented amateur string musicians will present a piece by local composer, Cecilia McDowall which premiered only last year. For the first time it will be performed with the added drama of ballet woven specially through it.
On Saturday 25 June at 7.30pm, at St Alban’s Church on Acton Green, the string group joins forces once again with dancers from Ballet4Life and its director, local dance artist and teacher Donna Schoenherr. She has created a new choreography to accompany Cecilia McDowall’s Off the Ground – which takes ideas from Walter de la Mare’s whimsical poem about three jolly farmers and 17th century dance tunes.
Also on the programme: Bartok’s Divertimento, and Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op 6 No 11.
Tickets for the concert (priced £15, £12, £6, £2) are available at nonesuchorchestra.org.uk and ballet4life.com or on this link.
The Nonesuch Orchestra, under conductor Dan Shilladay and leader Stephanie Waite, rehearses on Thursday mornings and gives workshops at primary and prep schools, as well as public concerts. In March it organised its fourth Student Composition Project for secondary schools, culminating in a concert of the works of 13 talented student composers at St Michael and All Angels Church.
Donna Schoenherr and Cecilia McDowall have both lived in Bedford Park for many years and have received awards locally and nationally.
After a long career as a professional ballet and contemporary dancer, Donna Schoenherr founded Ballet4life, offering dance classes for adults, in 2004 and Move into Wellbeing® in 2014, offering dance classes for those with mobility and wellness issues including Parkinson’s.
Cecilia McDowall is probably best known for her choral works. Her recent commissions include a new carol for the 2021 Christmas Eve Carol Service from King’s College Cambridge, and Everyday Wonders: The Girl from Aleppo, based on the story of a Kurdish teenager’s flight to Europe from war-torn Syria.
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June 10, 2022