The orchestra, a string and woodwind ensemble of about twenty players, has grown from a quartet founded in the 1920s by a local cellist, Charles Sayer. It is a rehearsal or run-through orchestra, one of its aims being to give practice in sight-reading. We are an amateur orchestra of friends, and players of all ages who are reasonably proficient sight-readers are welcome. (We must be getting something right: past members have gone on to play with The Academy of Ancient Music, the English Chamber Orchestra and The Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields!)

The orchestra has a library of over four hundred standard symphonic and light orchestral works. This has been built up over the years by donations from members, and by the extraordinary efforts of a former conductor, Alexander (‘Sandy’) Richardson. Sandy was conductor for over thirty years, and scarcely a month went by without him producing a new set of parts which he had immaculately transcribed. It takes us about three years to work through them!

Each week we play through a mix of perhaps half-a-dozen works, Beethoven rubbing shoulders with Bucalossi; Schubert with Strauss.