A spectacular opening to the season with a tribute to William Shakespeare: the curtain will rise with Orchestre National de Lyon’s performance of William Walton’s film score for Richard III, the final part of Laurence Olivier’s Shakespearian trilogy. The War of the Roses is raging, but the coronation of Richard Plantagenet is a magnificent event with resounding brass and organ. What better way to begin our new season of music. This is followed by the first performance in a European concert hall of Mason Bates’ Violin Concerto (Mason Bates is associate composer with the ONL), which was recorded by Anne Akiko Meyers, Leonard Slatkin and the London Symphony Orchestra. The work was inspired by Bates’ fascination with a prehistoric creature, the archaeopteryx, a transitional fossil between non-avian dinosaurs and birds. The music is in turn frenzied and dreamlike.

A glorious end to the concert with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with the four Spirito choirs joining forces in the famous “Ode to Joy”; and the audience will also be invited to take part!