A FUN evening with a serious aim is how acclaimed conductor, Richard Cock, describes the Last Night of the Proms concerts, which he has been conducting for the past 25 years.

Fresh from another successful Proms concert in Durban, hosted by the British Cultural and Heritage Association at the Playhouse last weekend, Cock will conduct the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra in the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg on Saturday, October 10, starting at 7.30 pm.

“I did the first Last Night of the Proms concert in Johannesburg, but all of them have been beautiful events,” he said. “People come to Proms concerts to have fun … they are not serious events but they do have a serious purpose. They are fundraising concerts and we have raised a lot of money over the past 25 years.

“In Johannesburg we help Lifeline, in Cape Town we work with Rotary to support St Luke’s Hospice and in Durban we work with the British Cultural and Heritage Association.”

The Pietermaritzburg concert isn’t a fundraiser, but the concert, sponsored by Parklane SuperSpar is certainly guaranteed to give concert-goers in the city and the KZN midlands the chance to let their hair down.

Performing with the orchestra and a massed choir will be the KZN Philharmonic’s distinguished principal players, Russian-born cellist, Boris Kerimov, and Romanian French-horn player, Sorin Osorhean, Lukhanyo Mayoke, principal tenor at Cape Town Opera, pipers, dancers and Christopher Cockburn, who will be playing the magnificent City Hall organ.

“Boris, Sorin and I have performed together in Grahamstown and I think a concert like this is a wonderful opportunity to give a platform to these talented players,” said Cock. “I think Lukhanyo – who I have worked with in Johannesburg and Cape Town – is a fantastic singer, a young man at the start of a great career.

“And Chris and I, well, we go back to Cape Town days and have worked on so many things together. I am looking forward to featuring the organ in the concert because there are not that many playable pipe organs in this country.”

The programme will include: O Fortuna from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Nessun dorma from Puccini’s Turandot, Va pensiero (the hugely popular Chorus of Hebrew Slaves) from Verdi’s Nabucco, Glazunov’s Reverie, Finlandia by Sibelius and Leroy Anderson’s ever-green, Blue Tango.

Other items to be enjoyed include O sole mio, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, as well as Proms’ fixtures such as Parry’s Jerusalem, Thomas Arne’s Rule Britannia and Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1.

“In all the centres we fill the Last Night of the Proms concerts,” said Cock. “They are a very easy way to introduce people to classical music. It’s not intimidating. With a concert like this, it’s important to do the popular stuff – and then, every now and then, to do some special pieces, like the ones that Boris and Sorin will be doing.”

The Proms concerts are modelled on the wildly exuberant culmination of Britain’s world-renowned BBC Promenade Concert series, which were founded in 1895. The concerts attract thousands of music fans, from all corners of the globe, who enjoy the eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events in venues across Britain, including London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Asked what he would say to those who say that modern day South Africa doesn’t have a place for the Last Night of the Proms, Cock says he believes the concerts still have a place.

“Henry James started the concerts to introduce people to a more easy style of concert and that’s what we are doing – and I think that our concerts are even more fun than the ones in London,” he added.

“I have no qualms about making concerts fun. It has been my thing to make music more accessible – I’ve been criticised for it because some people don’t think you talk about the music before it’s played.

“But the reality is that there are fewer and fewer educated concert-goers these days so explaining the music and talking about the composers is something that I and others have to do.”

Tickets for the Last Night of the Proms on October 10 range from R120 to R260. Book at Parklane SuperSpar — phone 033 342 3487. Secure parking is provided in the City hall precinct.

The Last Night of the Proms in Pietermaritzburg is presented and sponsored by Parklane SuperSpar and supported by The Witness, Msunduzi Municipality, CPW Printers, and Music Revival.