Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

RNCM, Manchester – Friday 15 November
National Concert Hall, Dublin – Saturday 30 November

Victoria Oruwari, a soprano singer with long hair and dark skin tone wearing a grey jumper is pictured singing with an anguished expression on her face. The image of Victoria is in black and white, with a blurred vibrant purple overlay of her face, creating a sense of movement.

About Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Cathartic and hauntingly beautiful, Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is an astonishing meditation on loss and transcendence. 

Performed by Paraorchestra with acclaimed soprano Victoria Oruwari, Charles Hazlewood conducts this harmonic ‘spiritual minimalist’ composition.

Each of the three movements of Symphony of Sorrowful Songs features a Polish lament, including a message inscribed on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell from a teenage girl to her Mother, and a Mother’s folk song about her son lost in the Silesian civil war. Sung in Polish, it’s an evocative work that brings both tears and joy, taking audiences on an uplifting journey through grief and solace.

Górecki’s masterpiece is preceded by a performance of Schubert's Death and the Maiden as realised for a full string orchestra by Mahler. A melancholic, iridescent, and urgent piece; this free-falling account of death as redemption was composed by Schubert in 1824 after a serious bout of illness that led him to face his own mortality.

An utterly sublime performance

Audience feedback, Southbank Centre  

Watch the trailer

Listen to an audio-described version of this trailer

Image gallery

  • A harpist with light skin tone and long brown hair sits at her instrument, one hand resting on the string
  • Victoria Oruwari, a woman with long golden hair in braids and medium dark skin tone wearing a white dress reads braile sheet music with her hands as she sings. Behind her a conductor gestures in the air.
  • A wide shot of a darkened performance space. Musicians dressed in white including a harpist, pianist, and string section stand on small platforms with the audience silhouetted around them.
  • A trio of violinists illuminated in soft yellow light.
  • A female keyboard player with light skin tone plays her instrument, her face obscured by her long hair.

Credits

Featured artists
  • Charles Hazlewood, a man with light skin and short hair wearing a black jumper and light blue jeans, is standing in the centre of a rehearsal space conducting four musicians who are surrounding him. He is focused and his right arm is raised in the air, motioning to the musicians. The rehearsal space is brightly lit.

    Charles Hazlewood

    Conductor
  • Victoria Oruwari, a woman wearing a white dress with long golden braids and medium ark skin tone, reads braille music as she sings.

    Victoria Oruwari

    Soprano
Musicians

Synthesizer
Hazel Mills 
Dan Moore 
Drew Morgan

Piano
Xiaowen Shang

Harp
Hannah Runting

First Violin
Tzu-Fan Tang
Siobhan Clough
Douglas Harrison
Marian Givens*
Hannah Bell*
Rebecca Bell*
Rosie Tompsett*
Paloma Deike*

Second Violin
Rob Simmons
Nina Lim
Fra Rustumji
Sophie Belinfante*
Maria Fiore Mazzarini*
Patrizia Lichtscheidl*
Eliette Harris*
Sophie Poteratchi*

Viola
Jordan Sian
Barnaby Adams 
Wei Wei Tan*
Heather Hawken*
Tilly Chester**

Cello
Josh Mountford
Hattie McCall Davies
Tom Wraith*
Zosia Jagodzinska*

Double Bass
Patrick Phillip
Jack Cherry
Cole Morrison*
Georgia Lloyd*

*Dublin performance only
**London performance only

Production team

Orchestra Managers
Tom Wraith
Barnaby Adams***

Production Manager
Hannah Chittell**
Dean Sudron

BSL Interpreter
Ela Cichocka*

Personal Assistant to Victoria Oruwari
Beth McKinnon

Sound Engineer
Patrick Philips

Lighting Designer
Joel Stanners

Personal Assistant to Tilly Chester
Garyn Wiggins**

*Dublin performance only
**London performance only
***Manchester performance only

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