Halle @ The Bridgewater Hall

Since the turn of the century, Andrew Gourlay is the fifth young conductor to hold the post of Assistant Conductor to the Hallé. Working with a symphony orchestra from the inside presents opportunities and challenges to a conductor, whether it is working closely with the Music Director, conducting the orchestra, or working as Music Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. Andrew, a former player who performed with the orchestra himself only relatively recently, talks to John Summers (who devised the Assistant Conductor scheme), about his career and his first season with the Hallé. Andrew will also direct members of his Youth Orchestra in music by Thomas Adès, composer of the opening work in tonight’s programme.

Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony, the work whose premiere he conducted only nine days before his death, needs no introduction: it is one of the most poignant pieces ever written. Also in this concert Sir Mark Elder features a recent British marvel and a violin concerto by Bruch – not the popular G minor but his equally tuneful and ardent Scottish Fantasy. The soloist is the young Ukrainian violinist Valeriy Sokolov, who made a tremendous impression last season in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and was immediately invited back. Opening the concert is the suite Thomas Adès created from his contemporary classic Powder Her Face, an operatic portrait of glitz and glamour in decadence and decay.

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