Beethoven Rocks
Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra are celebrating their 10th season. When they were founded in 2016, their opening concert included two magnificent pieces: Beethoven’s iconic Choral Symphony (The Ninth), and a specially commissioned work by Philip O’Meara, No Man.
Choir and Orchestra, together with soloists Helen May (soprano), Sarah Denbee (mezzo-soprano), Leonel Pinheiro (tenor) and Robert Winslade Anderson (bass), under the baton of Marcio da Silva, will join forces at The White Rock Theatre, on 20 November, to repeat that inaugural programme.
It seems astonishing now, but in 1824, Beethoven extended musical boundaries when, for the first time ever, he integrated vocal soloists and a full chorus into a final movement – Ode to Joy – of a symphony. The work remains one of the most performed and revered works in the classical repertoire.
O’Meara’s No Man leads the listener on a musical and literary journey, from the ‘No Man’s Land’ of war to the ‘No Man is an Island’ message of peace and unity of John Donne’s famous sonnet. Drawing on texts in English, French and Latin by W B Yeats, Victor Hugo, Donne, the Psalms of the Bible and Friedrich Schiller, weaving together the melodies of ancient Gregorian plainsong and a reforming of the famous theme from Beethoven’s choral finale, No Man presents an Ode to Joy for the modern age.
Thursday 20 November 2025, 7pm, White Rock Theatre. Tickets £10–£29.50, at hastingsphilchoir.org.uk/autumnconcert2025, or in person from the White Rock Theatre Box Office.
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