Resonance Ensemble - Shall We Dance?

Shall We Dance?

May we have the pleasure of this dance in your company at The Piano on Sunday 26 November at 3.00pm for this particularly exciting concert of dance-inspired masterpieces?

After Resonance Ensemble’s previous two, very enthusiastically-received programmes of twentieth century masterpieces, we’re lightening the tone for our final concert of 2023 with toe-tapping rhythms and exhilarating orchestral textures. From Saint-Saëns to Tchaikovsky, Brahms to Elgar, and Franz von Suppé to Richard Rodgers, this programme is full of sparkling gems that will cater to every taste.

Suppé’s Poet and Peasant Overture opens this concert with an invitation to an elegant Viennese waltz, before reaching its racy and spectacular final galop. Then, Richard Rodgers’ knack of producing some of Broadway’s most memorable and timeless classics is demonstrated by a short selection of hits from The King and I, including the song that gives our programme its title – Shall We Dance?

The gentle lilt of Edward Elgar’s two intimate orchestral chansons – Chanson de Nuit and Chanson de Matin – provide a surprising foil for his brilliant and lively Bavarian Dances before we move to the intoxicating gypsy rhythms of three of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances.

Rattling bones from the orchestra and fiendish fiddling from our brilliant guest soloist Rakuto Kurano bring the graveyard to ghostly life in Saint-Saëns’ turbulent Danse Macabre, before our concert ends with the sunny and colourful folksongs and dances of Southern Italy in Tchaikovsky’s vividly picturesque Capriccio Italien.

So – colour, spectacle and irresistible dance rhythms are vibrantly on display in Shall We Dance?