Birmingham Conservatoire says goodbye to Adrian Boult Hall

Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra in Adrian Boult Hall

Birmingham Conservatoire is saying goodbye to its Adrian Boult Hall. Opened in 1986, the hall will be demolished this summer and the site re-developed as the conservatoire is moving to a new £56m state-of-the-art building at Eastside, the first purpose-built music college in the UK for a generation. The conservatoire is currently running the City of Sounds festival which has its grand-finale on 26 June 2016 when, in the final concert in Adrian Boult Hall, there is Requiem for a Concert Hall when Verdi’s Requiem will be performed by the Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Richard Armstrong with soloists Caroline Modiba, Victoria Simmonds, David Butt Philip and Barnaby Rea; the concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Before the concert Christopher Morley (from the Birminham Post) will talk to renowned Barry Wordsworth about his time studying with Sir Adrian Boult, with rare archive footage.

Other events at the festival include the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with principal cellist Eduardo Vassallo as soloist in Haydn’s Cello Concerto in a concert co-conducted by Conservatoire Principal, Julian Lloyd Webber (4 June), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group performing Howard Skempton (20 May), choral music from the Old and New Worlds from Ex Cathedra (26 May), Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir perform music by John Joubert, directed by Paul Spicer (17 June), and pianist Di Xiao (a former Conservatoire graduate and now tutor) joins Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra for an evening based on the BBC’s 10 Pieces for young people (11 June). Junior Conservatoire choirs and orchestra join together to perform a piece written especially for them by Conservatoire composer and jazz trumpeter Percy Pursglove (25 June) and the region’s musicians and singers from Birmingham Festival Choral Society (22 May), Birmingham Gay Symphony Orchestra (12 June) and Sutton Coldfield Choirs (18 June) all bid farewell to the Hall.

Full details from the festival website.