Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, under the redoubtable leadership of Marcio Da Silva, have deservedly secured funds to enable them to perform no less than seven free concerts during the month of July. Called HPO Open Doors, these concerts offer unmissable opportunities to hear live classical music performed by some of the finest musicians on the South Coast.

At Christ Church St Leonards the HPO ensemble – a subset of the orchestra – will perform the much-loved favourite, Prokoviev’s Peter and the Wolf – accompanied by a puppet show explaining the action. For the older generation, they will also play a selection of tunes from The Sound of Music.

After that there is a ‘Choral Immersion’ at St Clements Church in the Old Town – a selection of elegant choral work by composers spanning four hundred years. They are: William Byrd, one of the greatest Renaissance choral writers; Brazilian 19th century composer José Nunes Garcia, born to impoverished parents, grandson of two slaves; and the extraordinary American composer Eric Whitacre, born in 1970, who turned from a techno-pop synth whizz to a fully-fledged composer during an instant of choral epiphany – and learnt to read music only after he entered music college. His choral music is completely, viscerally, beautiful.

Then there’s an open-air afternoon concert in Alexandra Park on the bandstand, with the HPO wind quintet playing favourites by Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, and Rossini. After that comes a full orchestral concert at the White Rock Theatre with selections from Carmen, Saint-Saёns’ Danse Macabre (you may know it as the theme from Jonathan Creek!), Ravel’s Mother Goose suite and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. This promises to be a highlight of the series – familiar music played excellently in familiar surroundings – and free.

The last two concerts are Holst’s Planets in the grounds of Battle Abbey at twilight, and a final Wine and Song recital at Christ Church. These concerts are sure to be exceptional and more especially, a unique opportunity for those to whom classical music is unfamiliar or who fear it may be inaccessible, expensive, or too serious. Go along, and experience the joy of creative humanity at its finest.

Tickets and details: hastingsphilorchest ra.co.uk/hpo-open-doors-2026. Full season details: hastingsphilorchest ra.co.uk/2025-26-season 

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. 

VICTORIA KINGHAM

Marcio Da Silva seems to have boundless ambition for his choir and orchestra – so much so that for this particular concert he strayed a long way from his baroque comfort zone to direct the music of an Estonian, an Austrian-American (both twentieth century) and a Norwegian (twenty-first century). 

Watching him conduct the Hastings Philharmonic Choir a couple of weeks ago brought home to me just how skilled he is at bringing out the best in musicians. The choir is open to anyone who can manage sustained singing; not all of them read music or have vocal training. They are well rehearsed by his singing phrases to them, in the correct pitch, until they are sure of their parts. 

The Arvo Part Berliner Mass isn’t easy; it’s full of very close harmonies, not all of which are played in the orchestral part, and some of which are unconventional or unexpected. It’s one of the few modern Masses which still has a specific liturgical purpose besides being a concert performance. It is beautiful and searing, and demands from the singers close attention and correctness. Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass is perhaps an easier piece to sing; one member of the choir described it as having some ‘cheesy’ tunes, and listening to it, I could hear what he meant. Gjeilo himself has said, in fact,  that he was inspired by film scores. Conversely, compositions of a century ago from people like Mahler and Rachmaninov, inspired future film music. The Schoenberg orchestral piece, Verklaerte Nacht [Transfigured Night], is emotive, evocative, and dramatic. It’s a wonderful piece for a small orchestra, and was played well by the Hastings Philharmonic, with evident pleasure. 

One advantage of the particular acoustic in Christ Church, and the relatively small size of the orchestra, is that the choral and solo parts don’t get obscured by the volume of the instruments. I’ve sometimes been at full orchestral/choral performances of Beethoven or Verdi (for example) where the orchestra overwhelms the piece, and the choir part-despite its beauty and complexity- becomes almost incidental. But in this setting, the balance was good and both choir and orchestra were heard to their best advantage. It was an evening to remember, augmented by the joy of the performers and the enthusiasm of the audience.

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Marcio da Silva, sang the Northern Lights on Saturday 5 July at Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards. 

Hastings Philharmonic Choir sing music from Northern Europe

GARETH SIMPSON

In July, Hastings Philharmonic Choir will perform the works of two living composers, Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Messe and Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass. They will be accompanied by the strings of Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Marcio da Silva), who will also perform Schoenberg’s gorgeous, other-worldly, Verklärte Nacht. Rachel Allen (soprano), Alex Pullinger (countertenor ), John Twitchen (tenor), and Jack Lawrence-Jones (bass) will sing solo roles.

Arvo Pärt is a contemporary composer from Estonia. His music is typically minimalist, employing his own invented technique of tintinnabuli, a musical texture that creates an aural effect emulating the resonance of bells. His music is also inspired by Gregorian Chant. His Berliner Messe, composed in 1990, is a meditative and structured setting of the Latin Mass. Originally commissioned for the 90th German Catholic Day in Berlin, the Masswas first performed there, shortly after the fall of the Wall, at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral.

Sunrise Mass was composed in 2008 by the Norwegian composer and pianist, Ola Gjeilo. It is structured in four movements, each movement setting part of the traditional text of the Latin mass. Gjeilo explained “I wanted the musical development of the Mass to evolve from transparent and spacey, through increasing emotion and movement, to something solid and grounded- as a metaphor for human development from child to adult, for a spiritual journey, or for the creative process itself.”

The notion of a spiritual journey – in this case the affirmation of love and forgiveness over blame and rejection – also underpins Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, this late-Romantic work depicts the conversation and emotions experienced by a man and woman walking through a forest at night.

Place: Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards Date: Saturday 5 July Time: 7 pm. Tickets: hastingsphilchoir.org.uk, or at The Bookkeeper, 1A Kings Road, St Leonards. £22.50/£18/£13.50. Students, under 18s, jobseekers and universal credit £5, or pay what you can.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) slipped into obscurity after his death until his music was revived in the mid-twentieth century. The Gloria in D, RV589, is one of three Gloria settings made by Vivaldi, of which only two survive. It had its first modern performance, in aversion prepared by Alfredo Casella, during Vivaldi Week in Siena, in 1939. Since then, its rhythmic drive, sparkling orchestration and an expressive range encompassing both joyful choral writing and lyrical, tender solo passages, have ensured its continuing popularity with choirs and audiences alike.

The Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) is perhaps best known for the significant role that he played in the development of the string quartet and the symphony. He also composed very fine choral music, such that the Missa in Augustiis (Mass for Troubled Times) is regarded by some as his greatest single composition. Written in 1798, it is one of six late masses by Haydn. What the composer did not know when he wrote the mass, but what he and his audience heard (perhaps on September 15, the day of the very first performance), was that on 1 August, Napoleon had been dealt a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile by British forces led by Admiral Horatio Nelson. Because of this coincidence, the mass gradually acquired the nickname ‘Nelson’ Mass.

The concert takes place at Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards on Saturday 9th November 2024 starting at 7.00pm. Tickets are on sale via the Choir’s website (hastingsphilchoir.org.uk) or at The Bookkeeper,1A KingsRoad, St Leonards, priced at £22.50/£18/ £13.50. Students, under 18s, jobseekers and universal credit £5.50/free.

Opera South East are to stage a production of Donizetti’s comic opera, The Elixir of Love, at the White Rock Theatre. The story is, like that of most comic opera, the stuff of fairy tale or farce, but as always with opera, the music is not. Listen to the aria Una Furtiva Lagrima – a song sung by the hero when he notices a tear on the cheek of his beloved and passionately realises that the ‘potion’ may actually be working. You may find a furtive tear lingering on your own cheek. 

Following her success with Opera South East’s production of Carmen in April 2023, artistic director Eleanor Strutt returns to the south coast to set this production in the early 1950s when Hastings local council have decided to promote the town as a seaside resort. They produce colourful leaflets and posters, all aimed at convincing potential holidaymakers that the town offers a glamorous alternative to what were still straitened post-war circumstances. The star of the new advertising campaign is the wealthy and attractive Adina, who loves being the centre of attention. She is pursued by two would-be suitors: the simple Nemorino and the cocky sergeant Belcore. When the spiv ‘Doctor’ Dulcamara visits the town with his miracle cures, Nemorino asks if he has an ‘Elixir of Love’. Ever the salesman, Dulcamara repurposes a bottle of cheap wine to the credulous Nemorino. But then, magically, the ‘elixir’ seems to have its desired effect. 

Following Ken Roberts’ retirement after last April’s production, Opera South East have appointed Marcio da Silva as its Musical Director and Conductor. Marcio is well known to Hastings audiences, having made a huge contribution to the musical life of the town since his arrival in Hastings just over a decade ago. Members of Sussex Concert Orchestra will also continue their long and fruitful association with Opera South East.

The company is also delighted to welcome Helen May (also well known locally) to the cast for this production. She plays the role of Adina, with John Twitchen as the hapless Nemorino, and Eleanor Westbrook as Adina’s friend, Gianetta. A warm welcome is extended to Richard Woodall who returns to the company after a gap of eight years to play the part of the ‘good’ Dr Dulcamara, and Oshri Segev as Belcore. Cast your mind back to those sun-drenched beaches of the 1950s and enjoy the nostalgia of long ago! 

‘The Elixir of Love’ is at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings, Friday 26 and Saturday 27 April at 7.30pm. Tickets from the White Rock Theatre at whiterocktheatre.org. If you are new to opera you can listen to a popular excerpt on tinyurl.com/mz3zz6mn. More about Opera South East can be found at operasoutheast.org.uk. An earlier Hastings Independent interview with Marcio da Silva is at hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/articles/culture/arts/baroque-and-roll

The concert will be conducted by the highly respected HPC Musical Director, Marcio da Silva, with soloists Kieran White (Evangelist/tenor), Oshri Segev (Jesus/bass), Anna-Luise Wagner (soprano) and Maya Colwell (alto).

Whether or not you believe in the authenticity of the Old Testament, the story of the prophet Elijah is vivid and bloodthirsty. Mendelssohn’s Elijah! oratorio incorporates various parts of the prophet’s story, told in tableaux with a cast including Obadiah (another prophet), baddies Queen Jezebel and King Ahab, various angels and a running narrative by a huge chorus. It’s a gloriously dramatic work of power and genius, and hearing it sung so very well in the De La Warr, with its very particular acoustic, brought goosepimples to my flesh and tears to my eyes. 

This last concert of the season (a new season starts in one month, as Marcio Da Silva announced) was a tour de force that brought together a 40-strong Philharmonic Orchestra and a 200-strong choral  section: the Hastings Philharmonic Choir, the Billingshurst Choral Society, and four guest choirs from Germany, with three guest conductors and a choral director. All were in full splendid voice. The drama and dynamics of the score, the excellence of the De La Warr acoustics and above all the soaring voices were a sound to cherish. Something about the lush Romantic harmonies, complex voicings, and redeeming narrative of Mendelssohn’s finest achievement will appeal to most audiences, and this particular performance of it must surely be up there with the best. 

It was a unique collection of talent by any standards, all the more so because it is concentrated in this area. Marcio Da Silva and his partner Helen May are a combined musical force well-known to residents of Hastings and St. Leonards. Da Silva directs both orchestra and choir, conducts, and sings. Helen May has a magnificent, flexible, expressive soprano voice, and is also general manager and outreach co-ordinator for the Hastings Philharmonic. Anthony Flaum, the tenor, also lives locally, has founded Prologue Opera and is also associate producer of Barefoot Opera.

The evening was carefully choreographed to allow each conductor a section of the whole, but also to sing along with the choir on stage when they were not conducting, an endearing feature of Hastings Philharmonic concerts. The soloists sang from various different positions on and off stage, depending on which character they were voicing. One of the highlights of the evening was the nine-year-old boy treble, Antônio Ulucan da Silva, (continuing the family tradition!) with a glorious, breathtaking, needle-sharp purity of tone. In evidence throughout were the sheer joy of the choirs and orchestra and the enthusiasm and skill of all the conductors and choir leaders. A mighty accomplishment.

Full details of the narrative and all the musicians can be found here: hastingsphilharmonic.com/30th-july-23 

Watching Cate Blanchett in the film Tár recently and subsequently reading a work which is said to inspire it, The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power, one would be forgiven for thinking that these rare, gifted leaders are unapproachable, arrogant, answerable only to themselves, inhuman in their quest for musical greatness. It was therefore with some hesitancy that I contacted our local Maestro, Marcio da Silva.

ACCESS TO CLASSICAL MUSIC

Perhaps because this is Hastings and St Leonards, a friendly, interesting, interested, tolerant, encouraging society, which values the Arts, we have in our midst a Maestro who is the absolute antithesis of the power-hungry myth; someone who is surprised if anyone addresses him as Maestro. But his achievements with both the Hastings Philharmonic Choir and the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (see previous articles in this newspaper) cannot be underestimated. He and his wife, Helen May da Silva, are between them a blaze of musical activity. This goes way beyond their own career aspirations; together they aim to bring classical music to a much wider local audience, to schools, to people who would not normally attend this kind of performance: to make it accessible.

A YOUNG PRODIGY

Apart from da Silva’s excellence at what he does, some of this missionary zeal could be a result of his upbringing. ‘Give me the child till he is seven years old, and I will show you the man’ was the well-known motto of Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuit founder, acknowledging Aristotle. Growing up in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, da Silva feels fortunate to have attended a Jesuit school, and in his case the philosophy has clearly been effective. 

At a young age he was already well-known, performing regularly on Brazilian television. His family were perhaps musical, but there are no professional musicians in his background. His grandmother, however (perhaps his prime mentor) actually created a choir to sing with him when he was twelve. 

I asked him how it felt to be a prodigy. “It was fun,” he muses. “It meant I could get out of school all the time because of choir rehearsals.” 

He travelled as a young teenager to Phoenix Arizona, where he auditioned for the Phoenix Choir and after six months was inspired by his own previous musical experience and the brilliant a capella male choir Chanticleer to form his own choir when he was just fourteen years old. 

MOVING TO HASTINGS

His career and achievements are already publicly well-documented, so I can refer you to his detailed biography at marciodasilva.com/biography. He had four years in France, three in Germany, and eventually took a Masters in conducting here at the Royal College of Music at the age of just 30. Randomly applying through an advertisement and obtaining the job of choir master for the Hastings Philharmonic Choir, he travelled down from London for three years until his grandmother (again) suggested that he move down here permanently, as it was such a conducive atmosphere; and also for the more prosaic reasons that he and his former wife, Ayşen Ulucan, could then afford a family house and a quieter atmosphere for the children. 

HASTINGS PHILHARMONIC, BOSSA NOVA, FRANK SINATRA

Once in the job, conducting choral concerts, he was inspired to take over the directorship and re-formation of the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016. He began at the same time to book his own players: to begin with a number of people that he knew from the Royal College and other places where he had studied and worked. He calls this smaller group the Orquesta – a name he had used for an ensemble in Germany – and they did a series of concerts in a London church. At the same time, he took over the directorship of the Woodhouse Opera Festival in Surrey from Monika Saunders, who died in 2018 but who he acknowledges was an inspiration to him. He loves conducting and directing romantic opera. 

The Orquesta has become the go-to company for Baroque music and is now internationally well known. By contrast, he has staged a number of Bossa Nova concerts locally, and a full night of Tango. He also grew up loving Frank Sinatra. He has even composed his own Te Deum, which he will perform in June along with Poulenc’s unbearably beautiful, haunting Gloria.

UNSTOPPABLE

He lives in St Leonards with Helen May and his two children by his former marriage. Together they seem unstoppable. Their joint mission includes making high-quality performances appealing and accessible, offering, unusually, free tickets to under-18s, students, jobseekers, and recipients of universal credit. 

They engage children, young people, and adults in interactive workshops and try to offer performance opportunities. They endeavour to share their work across as many and as diverse groups as possible and offer multi-art form opera projects, which also include movement, dance, physical theatre, and puppetry. 

He and May have launched opera workshops at two primary schools in Hastings and St Leonards and have built strong links with Awards for Young Musicians and Create Music, thus supporting and mentoring local musical children and those from low-income families.

THE HUMAN TOUCH

Watching his performances in St Leonards, in Christ Church, I am struck by his readiness to address the audience personally, and furthermore his taking part in the performance while conducting – though this, he admits, was partly a financial decision. The cost of staging an orchestral concert is enormous (even filling the church with ticketholders does not really cover the cost) so because there was only one section of the C Minor Mass that required a baritone, he decided he could fill the part himself. The effect of this was in fact to strengthen the bond between the performers and the audience, but probably also to strengthen the bond of trust between him and the orchestra and choir.

This directness is important to him. He loves living here, and he loves being able to fill the church with an audience of people who know him, and many whom he can call friends. He readily and gratefully acknowledges all the help he has had from diverse sources. He thanks Christ Church, who opened their doors and allowed him to stage concerts for nothing, and John Read, a lifelong member of the Choir and Church Warden at Christ Church, whose help and encouragement he is particularly grateful for. His friends and family do a large share of the administrative work and organisation that enable an orchestral concert to happen, including fundraising. 

Though he says he is quite strict about what he wants musically from the orchestra and choir, the way he obtains excellent results is by being the antithesis of the furious demanding Maestro. He is in his 40th year; we are extremely fortunate that this area and its residents are able to nurture his musical gifts, enjoy some brilliant orchestral and choral baroque performances, and appreciate his articulate, approachable humanity.

It’s so important – especially in Lockdown – to experience live performances. Because, with music, we’re (hopefully) partaking of someone else’s peak performance. And this HPO concert was outstanding. One felt privileged to be there. (Yup, as a Woodstock vet: there’s no substitute for ‘being there’!) A year ago, I couldn’t have conceived of a concert in Christ Church like this one. A small masked audience sat in a semi-circle in the centre of the nave – facing north. And all neatly seated, singly, in twos and threes some ten yards from the performers. I can’t remember the church so well-lit and welcoming. Everything was superbly arranged. And the programme was most informative and thoughtfully written.

The concert trio – a fine ensemble consisting of piano (Lysianne Chen), clarinet (Boyan Ivanov) and soprano (Helen May) – gave us nine well-chosen pieces. There was something to please everybody: from Schubert, Verdi, Massenet, Gounod, Bizet, Dvorak to Gershwin and Fazil Say’s surprising Black Earth. Remarkably, in Black Earth, Lysianne Chen made the piano talk and sing. Some achievement indeed.

Yet, all the pieces gave rise to virtuoso performances. I greatly enjoyed Helen May’s Caro Nome (Verdi) – beautifully rendered. And Dvorak’s Song to the Moon, which Renee Fleming and Frederica von Stade have made their own, was simply entrancing.

Boyan Ivanov plays the clarinet with exceptional skill, heart and verve. As if newly-minted, his powerful Rhapsody in Blue will stay long in my memory. As will his wonderful encore piece. Interestingly, Gershwin got his inspiration for Rhapsody in Blue on a train journey to Boston: “…with its steely rhythms, its rattly-ty bang, that is so often stimulating to a composer… And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end… I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America.” (Programme Notes). It’s good to know that Ivanov and Chen are about to release their debut album. 

Unscheduled, HPO’s Conductor, Marcio da Silva took to the floor and joined the trio to joyfully sing in Carmen Fantaisie. Then, suddenly, he despatched his blue mask and used it as his toreador’s cape. Naturally, this spontaneous performance delighted the audience. It’s the unexpected and humorous that can make a concert. And the finale had a charming surprise: the Maestro’s small son and daughter dutifully came up to give three red roses to the brilliant performers. (Beats being a fairy in the school play!) Enchanting. Delight all round. A lovely touch to end a perfect evening.