Banbury Symphony Orchestra’s autumn concert programme brings you a wonderful mix of romantic favourites.

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We start the concert with Beethoven's Egmont Overture, which was premiered in 1810 and is one of the last works of Beethoven's middle period. It's expressive music in the style of the fifth symphony.

 

Finzi's Cello Concerto was commissioned by the conductor John Barbirolli and was first performed at the Cheltenham Music Festival by the Halle Orchestra and Barbirolli in 1955, with Christopher Bunting as the soloist. We're delighted to welcome our soloist Yoanna Prodanova to perform this concerto with us this evening.

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Yoanna was born in 1992 in Varna, Bulgaria. She completed her studies in 2019 at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she was a Bicentenary Scholar on the prestigious Advanced Diploma course, already having obtained her Bachelor and Master’s degrees at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Previously she studied in Varna and in Montreal, where her family immigrated in 2006.

Yoanna has performed concertos with the Royal Academy of Music Orchestra, the Amati Orchestra, the Surrey Philharmonic and the Guildford Symphony Orchestra among others. She regularly performs as a recitalist in the UK and Europe.

Her debut album, including works by Janacek, Fauré and Chopin with Mihai Ritiviu, was released in 2020 on the Linn Records label. She has also recorded the Brahms Clarinet Trio with Joseph Shiner and Somi Kim for Orchid Records.

Yoanna’s awards include The Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Artists (2016), the Sylva Gelber Award (2017, 2018), Tunnell Trust Award (2019) and the First prize at the International Joachim Competition in Weimar with her string quartet, the Barbican Quartet.