NOW IN ITS 39TH YEAR, THE HERTFORDSHIRE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA is one of a small group of amateur orchestras in the UK performing to near professional standards. In 1991 the Ham & High said '...the biggest bouquets go to the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra, playing with an accuracy and poise few other amateur bands could match'. In 1992 The Independent said '...the orchestra played with professional dedication and quality.'
The orchestra has been fortunate to attract young soloists and conductors at the outset of their careers to perform many works suitable to the orchestra's size. The strength of the orchestra lies in its variety of age and experience: during the year players will range from school leavers to pensioners including former members of a number of youth orchestras, representing a wide variety of professions.
The original idea behind the orchestra, as stated in 1966 by its founder Peter Smith, a bassoon-playing undergraduate just down from Cambridge, was to have a concentrated period of rehearsal time confined to a weekend, with all players present, using the maximum number of hours available to ensure the highest possible standards. Thus was born the idea of residential rehearsal weekends that are still an integral part of the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra's concert preparations.
Over the last thirty-seven years the orchestra has performed most of the works of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries suitable to its size. It has given concerts and radio broadcasts in Belgium, Greece, and Malta and, in March 1994, on its third trip to Spain, gave two concerts with the London Philharmonic Choir in Murcia and Bilbao. In February 1999 and March 2000 the orchestra gave public concerts and children's concerts in Sharjah and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates with concertos played by Paul Barritt. The orchestra has performed in many Hertfordshire venues. It regularly accompanies choral societies, including the North Hertfordshire Guild of Singers, the Crouch End Festival Chorus, the Aeolian Singers, Collegium Musicum of London and the Cambridgeshire Choral Society. Over the last twenty years many fine concerts have been given in London at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St John's Smith Square, St James's Piccadilly, St Giles Cripplegate and St. Paul's Covent Garden.
Former Musical Directors of the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra have included Sir Andrew Davis, Howard Williams and Edmon Colomer, now the orchestra's President, and Andrea Quinn. In recent years the orchestra has worked with En Shao, Martyn Brabbins, Anthony Halstead, Mark Shanahan, Stefan Asbury, Richard Farnes, Philip Ellis, Martin West, Gerry Cornelius, David Corkhill, Chris Rowland, Alexander Walker, Brynly Clarke, Robin O'Neill, Jacques Cohen andRobin Browning. Soloists have included Alexander Baillie, Vanya Milanova, Jonathan Plowright, Vanessa Latarche, Julian Rolton, Sergei Raldugin, Tasmin Little, Andrew Marriner, Iwan Llewelyn-Jones, Jonathan Kitchen, David Pyatt, Chris West, Donald Grant, Angela Lee, Jonathan Barritt, and Paul Barritt who directs the orchestra from the violin.
Choral concerts have included Puccini: Messa da Gloria with the Aeolian Singers and a semi-staged version of Bach: St Matthew Passion with the Crouch End Festival Chorus at Sadlers Wells Theatre in 2001. In January 2001 for the first time the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra premiered a work by one of its own members: Quartz was written by Maud Hodson for Paul Barritt and the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra.
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