Saturday 8 November 2025 7.45pm
St Andrews Garrison Church, Aldershot, GU11 2BY – Venue Information
Guest Conductor: Daniel Hogan
Soloist: Freddy Branson (Flute)
Bizet: Extracts from Carmen Suite No. 1
De Falla: Three-Cornered Hat Suite No. 2
Carmichael: Phoenix: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Suite Op. 20a
The FSO opens its 2025/26 season with an exciting programme of music from the worlds of opera and ballet, coupled with the UK premiere of the Phoenix Concerto by Australian composer, John Carmichael. Joining us to perform this latter work is young flautist, Freddy Branson, who was the winner of the 2024 Marina Piccinini International Concerto Competition. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Freddy is currently a junior at the Peabody Institute, pursuing a Bachelor of Music in flute performance under the instruction of Marina Piccinini (an Honorary Patron of the FSO). Freddy has garnered numerous awards and scholarships throughout his musical career and has performed in prestigious venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna and Sydney Opera House.
The opening work of the concert is a series of extracts from Bizet’s Carmen Suite No. 1. Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera, Carmen, has become an enduring classic embodying many familiar tunes. The two suites, which draw on some of its most memorable melodies and which adhere very closely to Bizet’s orchestration, were compiled posthumously by the composer’s friend Ernest Guiraud. The Three-Cornered Hat is a ballet choreographed by Léonide Massine to music by Manuel de Falla. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet premiered in London in 1919 and the music, infused with the spicy flamenco rhythms and modal harmony of Andalusian folk music, has become popular in the ensuing years.
Swan Lake was the first of Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores, composed between August 1875 and April 1877. In 1882, the composer wrote “You know that the French composer Delibes has written ballets. Since ballets are not things with a permanent existence, then he’s made concert suites to be performed from them. The other day I remembered my Swan Lake and wanted very much to preserve this music, which contains a few decent things, from oblivion. And so I have decided, like Delibes, to make a ‘suite’ from it”. In the event, Tchaikovsky never created a concert suite but one was compiled anonymously after his death. He need not have worried about the work’s enduring appeal as it is now widely considered one of the most popular ballets of all time.
For this opening concert we welcome back guest conductor, Daniel Hogan, who needs no introduction as he has worked with the FSO several times over the last few seasons. We look forward to being inspired by his fresh and sensitive approach to this exciting music, whether familiar or less well-known. We hope that you will join us for this evening of scintillating melodies and thrilling harmonies as we seek to play our part in preserving all this music from ‘oblivion’!
