Gloriously upbeat start to 2024 from Worthing Symphony Orchestra

SussexWorld

Worthing Symphony Orchestra will be setting the New Year up perfectly with their gloriously upbeat New Year concert in the Assembly Hall, Worthing on Sunday, January 7 at 2.45pm.

Transcript

00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always really

00:06 lovely to speak to John Gibbons of Worthing Symphony Orchestra. Now John, you are a January

00:12 fan and most of us aren't, and one of the reasons you are a fan of that wretched month

00:16 of January is the V&A's concert which you offer in Worthing. And as you're saying, it's

00:21 always one of the most uplifting concerts of the year. It's Assembly Hall, Worthing

00:25 Year Concert, Sunday January 7th at 2.45pm. What makes it so special, this concert?

00:34 I think what makes it special is that it comes at the very end of the whole holiday season.

00:40 So it's not crammed on to when the Viennese New Year is on the 1st of January when people

00:45 sit at home and watch the Viennese concert, but it's a whole six, seven days later. It's

00:51 like crowning off the end of the whole holiday period. And what I love about it is that everybody

00:57 walks out the room on an absolute high, they're foot tapping, the music's all joyous, you

01:03 know it's going to be joyous. And it just sets you up and however miserable the weather

01:09 is as you walk out, you know that things can only get better because actually spring is

01:15 round the corner. If you look at the trees, the trees are beginning just to bud underneath

01:19 all the cold, the bulbs are going to be coming up underneath the snow, and the days are getting

01:24 longer.

01:25 So you're sitting there thinking, oh dear Christmas is over, you're thinking ahead to

01:29 the optimism of spring with this concert.

01:31 Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I mean, life is so important for us.

01:35 The defining characteristic of the music is tunefulness. What do you mean by that?

01:40 Well, there's certain sequences that we all played every year, like the Blue Danube Waltz.

01:45 And everybody knows the tunes, you can almost hear the audience humming along as you play

01:49 the tunes and everything. And as human beings, I think the most important thing we love is

01:53 tunes. So if you've got tunes that people know well and everything, it's a really good

01:57 feel good factor. And then I can conjure up there are, I don't know, there'll be two to

02:03 three thousand pieces that you can choose from for this particular concert that fit

02:07 into the Viennese genre. It was a phenomenal compositional school really. And I've managed

02:14 to acquire this year a lot more music for it, which means that I've got some more interesting

02:20 Waltz sequences that we've not heard for some time, which will be in the programme. And

02:24 there's always exciting little polkas and marches that you can put in that just sort

02:29 of tickle, just to spark the imagination for everybody.

02:34 So there's certain ones around, so it's staples that you must include, but then you can write

02:38 the changes.

02:39 Yeah. So there'll be Thunder and Lightning polka, there'll be the Bradecki March, which

02:43 everyone enjoys joining in with, but there'll be some really unusual ones. Last year we

02:48 did Village Swallows for the first time for a very, very long time, which was a really

02:52 beautiful Waltz sequence. And the Waltz sequences are not just, they vary so much, they're like

02:59 little orchestral tone poems. There's so many different moods within the Waltz sequences.

03:04 Oh, that's lovely. You'll never forget the January is a terrible month, but you're very

03:10 prosperous. It sounds great. And the wider context is that times are good for the orchestra,

03:15 despite the cost of living, you're doing well.

03:20 We survived and we're going and we're still there, we're still putting on lots of concerts.

03:25 And it's a joy to continually meet new people coming along to the concerts, saying this

03:31 is the first time I've ever been to a Worthing concert. And wow, I didn't know that we had

03:35 this amazing orchestra on our doorstep. And it's so nice for people just to be able to

03:40 drive, what, 10, 15 minutes, go to the Assembly Hall, fantastic acoustics of the Assembly

03:46 Hall, listen to a concert and be home within 15, 20 minutes. You don't have to go to London

03:51 in order to hear great orchestral music.

03:53 And as we were saying just now, the really crucial thing is that you're actually having

03:58 it there live in front of you. And the difference that makes is just incalculable, isn't it?

04:04 Yeah, and I think in music, it's actually people forget maybe the difference between

04:11 hearing it in your living room, wonderful sound system, the glass of wine, but it's

04:16 not the same collective experience. I always relate it to football. When I go and watch

04:20 my football team and you're losing the game 1-0 and you're going into extra time and then

04:25 suddenly you score two goals and win.

04:27 And you have to be there.

04:29 You cannot encapsulate that feeling of all the people in the ground going, "I can't

04:34 believe it." It's something you feel. It's not just the noise, the sheer exuberance.

04:39 And in a lesser way, any arts thing that you go to, if you go to the theatre, if you go

04:44 to a concert, that is what you're actually experiencing. It's not just the music, it's

04:50 actually the whole ambience of the whole event that actually makes it special. And I think

04:55 a lot of our concerts become memories that you sit and remember for many, many decades.

05:02 You don't forget it. And I think that's what coming to concerts is about. It's building

05:06 your life experiences that you remember. I go to visit my mum in a care home and we

05:11 can still talk about concerts that we remember from when I was a kid. The time I played

05:17 Samson's Organ Symphony at Southampton Guild Hall at the age of 10. And I was in charge

05:22 of the organ and it got a cipher. So it was ciphers when a note gets stuck on the organ

05:27 and it's just playing there. And it was a G sharp. And I was going to come in in the

05:30 famous moment and the sound was on a big C major chord, looking around at my parents

05:35 in panic. I can't stop it. I've done everything I'm meant to do, turn the organ off, turn

05:38 it back on again. But no, it's stuck. Well, that would stay with you, wouldn't it, really?

05:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those sort of memories. But that is exactly what a live concert is.

05:46 It gives you memories that you remember. Fantastic. Well, that sounds a really terrific

05:51 prospect. Uplifting for January. Just perfect. And it's the New Year concert from Worthing

05:55 Symphony Orchestra, the Assembly Hall, Worthing, Sunday, January the 7th at 2.45pm. John, always

06:02 great to speak to you. Thank you ever so much. Great. Thanks so much, Bill.

06:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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