City of Southampton Orchestra is celebrating its 30th anniversary (From Hampshire Society)

City of Southampton Orchestra is celebrating its 30th anniversary

12:56pm Saturday 2nd January 2010

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When Denise Kendall joined her local orchestra three decades ago, she could not imagine that one day she and her fellow musicians would be starring in a movie.

City of Southampton Orchestra – which now has some 80 members – will make its debut in a short independent film to be screened in London, Beijing and Toronto early this year.

Forty members of the orchestra feature in The Caretakers Symphony, which tells the story of a conductor who loses his muse and breaks down in front of his orchestra during rehearsal.

Southampton musicians play a key role in the 15-minute production, featuring in the opening sequence and performing an original piece of music for the film’s ending.

French horn player Denise, who has been with the orchestra since the 1970s, was thrilled to have the opportunity of performing for the silver screen.

“We spent two days filming at the Kings Theatre Southsea,”

says Denise who is also a musical administrator at the University of Southampton.

“There was a surprising amount of waiting around but it was fascinating to see the process from behind the scenes.

“Our musical director John Traill was marvellous. He was heavily involved in how the stage would look and helping the actor who played the conductor to get the right movements.

“We were all spending quite a large amount of time together and we built up a real camaraderie.”

Once filming was complete, the process of re-recording the music for the soundtrack began with the orchestra meeting again, this time at Taunton’s College in Southampton.

“The sound in the theatre wasn’t the quality that was needed for the film,” explains Denise. “We had to play exactly the same music as we did during filming so the sounds and visuals could be matched up later. John had headphones with a click track to make sure we got the tempo exactly right.”

A release date for the film – which is written and directed by Ian Gray of Grayscale Productions – is yet to be announced but screenings are due to take place at the BFI in London as well as at the Beijing and Toronto film festivals.

“It’s exciting to see it come together,” says Denise. “It was a wonderful experience and we’d never done anything like it before. We did it for the sheer enjoyment and love of music.”

Denise who joined the orchestra in 1976 when it was known as ‘Solent Sinfonia’ is one of the group’s longest standing members.

It all began with an ad hoc ensemble in 1971 for a performance with the New Forest Singers. But the group quickly developed into a permanent chamber orchestra performing in Southampton Art Gallery and later The Atherley School.

These days the City of Southampton Orchestra rehearses every Tuesday at Cantell School and its members (who range from teenagers to those in their 70s) perform five regular concerts every year, including two at Southampton Guildhall and an annual family concert at Central Hall, designed to introduce children to orchestral music.

The orchestra is also lined up to play a role in Southampton’s Titanic commemorations in 2012, including a possible concert in a city cruise terminal to mark the centenary of the tragedy.

“We try to promote concerts of as high a musical standard as we can but keeping that friendly approach,” says Denise who cites working with world famous cellist Julian Lloyd Webber as a personal highlight of her time with the orchestra.

“The difference between us and a professional orchestra is that we do it in our spare time purely because we love making music and performing it. There’s a real sense of community spirit.

“The sheer magic of sitting down with a like-minded group of people and making music keeps us coming back week after week. For anyone who has learnt to play an instrument and loved it there is something so special about sitting in an ensemble and making music rather than simply being a bystander.

“Southampton has an orchestra to be proud of and it’s wonderful to be a part of it.”

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