HISTORY OF THE BRISTOL MILLENNIUM ORCHESTRA

The Orchestra began its life as “The Radio Bristol Returners’ Orchestra”, the first rehearsal of which took place on the 31 January 2000 at Colston Girls’ school, conducted by Alistair MacKenzie, Director of Music at the school.  It was the brainchild of Radio Bristol’s Vicki Klein, and was formed as a contribution to the Millennium Year of Music being organised by the BBC throughout the country.

Initially it was set up to rehearse for the BBC Millennium Music Live Concert held at St George’s, Brandon Hill on Saturday 27 May 2000, which was recorded and broadcast on Radio Bristol on Monday 29 May.  Our programme included the following:-   

The programme also included some fine young soloists from various schools, and our guest pianist was Alan Schiller.

The orchestra was formed of the most diverse players you can imagine, of all ages even up to the age of 80.   Most of them had not picked up their instruments for many years, and this was a rare opportunity to resume music making with a group of people on the same level of entry, i.e. very rusty, but with a great deal of enthusiasm.  There was no embarrassment at having to go through an audition, but with the varied programme above, each player soon discovered his or her own weaknesses, and what they needed to practise.

Our next concert was The Radio Bristol Christmas Celebration at Wells Cathedral on 18 December which was broadcast on Radio Bristol and Somerset Sound on Christmas Eve and also on Christmas Day.   It was presented by the late Roger Bennett, with readings given by various BBC presenters, and was a most joyous occasion for us all to share.

2001 saw the orchestra playing in Bristol Cathedral on the 21 April as part of the celebrations of the Local History  Millennium project “Music Live”,  the programme for which included Beethoven Symphony No 5 (1^st and 4^th Movements), the Blue Danube, Hall of the Mountain King and The Dam Busters’ March.

This was closely followed on the 30 June with a “Last Night of the Proms” concert at the Colston Hall, with, as the programme announced it, “starring in concert for the first time Roger Bennett and Acker Bilk”.  Our contribution to the evening included accompanying a singer with Elgar’s “Sea Pictures”, accompanying Christopher Northam playing the first movement from Grieg’s piano concerto in A Minor, and of course, the last night of the proms. favourites, Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.  We also played the William Tell Overture and the Radetzky March, the latter of which was accompanied by enthusiastic clapping from the audience.  With the help of the Great Western Chorus and the City of Bristol Boys’ Choir, and the contribution of jazz from Acker and Roger, the evening was considered to have been a huge success, and was thoroughly enjoyed by both the audience and the participants.  It was broadcast by Radio Bristol on Sunday July 8^th.

To complete a very busy year of performances, the orchestra played on the 16 November  at the Mall at Cribbs Causeway in aid of Children in Need.  2001 certainly proved to be a very exciting year for the orchestra.

2002 sprung into action on Saturday  23 February when we played at Wells Cathedral again, this time for the Historyfest in the afternoon, the programme for which included Music for the Royal Fireworks, 4^th Movement of Beethoven’s 6^th , Swan Lake, Phantom of the Opera and Slavonic Dance No 8.  This again was broadcast later.

With the Queen’s Jubilee this year, the BBC organised a “A musical celebration of Bristol’s history under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II”   This involved the orchestra together with choirs and young actors from Bristol Musical Youth Productions in three performances of the “Jubilation” concert, two of which took place on Saturday 1 June, followed by an evening performance on Sunday 2 June.   It was quite an exhausting weekend, but also extremely enjoyable for everyone involved.  We are sure that our conductor, Alistair will remember this for other reasons also, for he unfortunately broke his ankle not long before, and was only just out of plaster in time for the event, so his usual “dancing” about conducting was somewhat restrained!

Sadly, the “Christmas Crackers” concert at St George’s on 2^nd December proved to be the last that Alistair Mackenzie would conduct for us, as he had accepted a new post  at a school in Lancashire and was obviously having to move away from Bristol.  We were all very sorry to see him go, and we were anxious that the orchestra should not fold for lack of leadership.  Fortunately for us all, Paul Sidney stepped into the breach, and our orchestra has continued to flourish since.

2003 saw us again taking part, this time in a Natural History Festival, when we played al fresco in the Millennium square on the 31 May, giving two performances at 12.00 and 2.00 p.m..  The weather was kind to us, although we did need pegs to keep our music on the stands!

This was followed by a “Proms” afternoon at Avonpark Care Village at Limpley Stoke, Bath.  The television presenter, Martyn Lewis, acted as compère for the event, as his mother actually lived within the village, and the concert was in aid of various charities.  We played in a rather grand marquee and our programme included the whole of Beethoven’s 5^th symphony for the first half of the event (rather ambitious perhaps, but we all finished at the same time!) followed by Elgar Pomp and Circumstance 1 and Holst’s Jupiter from the Planet Suite.  On the 17 September, we played for the British Legion at the TA centre in Horfield.

The 1^st and 2^nd November saw us taking part in the “Concorde Stories” at the Victoria Rooms which was “A community celebration in song, dance and drama telling the story of Concorde’s Filton years through the personal memories of local people”.  A special anthem had been composed by Richard Jeffrey-Gray called “Silver Bird” and we accompanied the choir and audience who sang this – it was quite an emotional end to the event, with the sound reproduced of Concorde passing overhead!

The last concert of the year was for family and friends at Kingsfield School on Monday 8 December 2003.

2004 opened with a concert in aid of Mozambique, organised by an orchestra member, Margaret Bailllie, which took place at Christ Church, Clevedon on the 6 March.This was followed by a mid day concert at Rolls Royce Open Day on the 10 July, after which we were allowed special viewing facilities for the air show which took place during the afternoon.  The security, was, however, so great that we had to be accompanied to the toilets by an on site official!

This was closely followed on the 17 July by our first open air concert at Iron Acton, which was a huge success, and from which the organisers raised a large amount of money for their charity “Acton Aid”.

On the 11 September we were again invited to play al fresco in Bath during the afternoon.  The weather held out reasonably well for us, although many pegs were required to secure the music from blowing away!

The British Legion invited us once again to give a concert near to Remembrance Day on the 16 October, this time at Whiteladies Road TA Centre.

The year concluded with the orchestra giving a Christmas Concert at Kingsfield School on Monday  6 December, mainly for family and friends.   Our year ended with a Christmas Social of an American Supper and Quiz Night on the 13 December at the Disabled Living Centre at Fishponds, and a good evening was had by all.

2005 Our first concert of the year was not until 18 June this year and was held at Chipping Sodbury Town Hall to coincide with their annual festival.  It was again a “last night of the proms” event, at which many flags were waved.   The programme other than the usual proms. items included most of  the music  we would be playing at the forthcoming Iron Acton concert

We returned to Iron Acton for  another “Proms in the Park” event on the 16 July. Our programme included Pomp and Circumstance Marches No 1 and No 4, the Carmen Suite;  the 2^nd Movement of Dvorak Symphony No. 9:  the 4^th Movement of Beethoven Symphony No. 5:  Ride of the Valkyries, Nimrod, and William Tell Overture, as well as a Fantasia of British Sea Songs by Henry Wood and the usual joining in of the audience with Jerusalem.  The evening culminated in a firework display whilst the orchestra battled with 1812 overture!

The year concluded with another British Legion Concert, this time at Patchway School.

On the 12 December we celebrated Christmas with an American Supper evening at Colston Girls’ School, and the following day some of the orchestra played at the request of Radio Bristol in the Baptist Chapel at Broadmead, in aid of an appeal for a stained glass window in memory of Roger Bennett.

2006 The decision was made to bring the orchestra onto a more independent footing, by creating a constitution and to this end the Steering Group was set up and had their first meeting on 10 March 2006. 

One of the first tasks to be tackled by the new Steering Group was to create a Constitution for ourselves.  In order to do so, we had to agree on a name and we chose to call ourselves the Radio Bristol Orchestra, having been known as the Radio Bristol Returners’ Orchestra since our inception.  Approaches were made to Radio Bristol for their agreement of this title, but due to  major changes in their editorial policies, they unfortunately would not give us permission to use their name, and did not inform us of their decision until November 2006.  The search then began in earnest for a new title which went to ballot at an EGM in April 2007 and the majority decision of the members, after much deliberation, was  “Bristol Millennium Orchestra” as  many felt it appropriate that it was in the year 2000 that we were formed.  Our attachment to Radio Bristol was, therefore, severed and we now act as an independent orchestra and have no obligations to our founders.  All this process took well over a year to come to fruition.

2006 In the meantime 2006 saw us give our first concert of the year as “Proms in the Meadow” at Iron Acton, which was very well received and for which the weather was kind to us once again!

On the 9 September we were asked to do another “Proms” concert-this time at Filton Folk Centre.

We had our first AGM on the 11 September 2006 at the home of Marilyn Wright, at Algar’s Mill, Iron Acton, still using the name of  Radio Bristol Orchestra as we were not aware at that time that Radio Bristol were not going to allow us to use this title.  We had a very pleasant social evening at Marilyn’s with an American Supper following the AGM.

Our final concert of the year was one we arranged for ourselves at Broadmead Baptist Church on the 2 December at which we asked for a retiring collection in aid of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and raised £170 for this.  This was followed by a Christmas Social at Colston’s school on the 11 December.

2007 The 29 January 2007 was the 7th Anniversary of our first rehearsal as an orchestra in the year 2000 and we celebrated at the end of the rehearsal with a special cake which was decorated with a picture of the orchestra members.  We all delighted in eating pieces of each other!

Our first concert of 2007 was at Christchurch, Clevedon on the 5 May where we had the opportunity to choose our own music to play.   Wendy Shearman and Simon Naylor played Bach’s Violin and Oboe Concerto which was very well received. It was an ambitious programme and for the second half we played the whole of Beethoven 6th Pastoral Symphony.  Margaret Baillie had organised this concert on behalf of charities.  It was very well attended and we understand that a large sum of money was raised.  It was also the last concert at which we were to call ourselves “Radio Bristol” and from then on have been known as Bristol Millennium Orchestra.

This has been a busy year up until the writing of this history with two concerts very close together - both Proms type—one at Stinchcombe, Glos on the 10 June in a marquee in aid of their church funds, and the other at Thornbury at the Chantry Gardens on the 16 June.

This was closely followed by “Proms in the Meadow” at Iron Acton where again, we had the most wonderful weather, and together with a new soloist, Richard Allen, and a team of ladies dancing the Can Can plus the usual fireworks, a great time was had by all, and a considerable sum was raised for charity.

The other significant most important date of the year was 21 July 2007 on which a son, Guy Philip Sidney was born to Linzi and Paul.  There is much speculation as to which instrument he is going to take up!