Scarborough Orchestra November Concert

The Scarborough Symphony Orchestra open their 2026-2027 season at Queen St Methodist Hall on Saturday 21 November, with Shaun Matthew conducting. It's the first concert of their new run, and the programme pulls together a few different threads: a world première, some English orchestral music with a bit of history behind it, and a symphony by Florence Price that brings in African American musical traditions.

The night starts with George Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody, inspired by A. E. Housman's poetry. Butterworth wrote it before the First World War and died on the Somme in 1916 at just 31, so the piece has become closely tied to that conflict. Then comes Gerald Finzi's The Fall of the Leaf, an elegy he left unfinished at his death; it was later completed by Howard Ferguson and remains one of his most intimate orchestral works.

Mid-programme is the world première of Ascension, a concerto for flute and orchestra by David C. Heath, performed by the internationally renowned flautist Wissam Boustany. The evening closes with Florence Price's Symphony No. 3 in C minor, which binds African American musical traditions to bold twentieth-century orchestral writing. The whole night is sponsored by Lady Ayckbourn and is open to audiences of all ages.

Doors open at 6:15pm and the music starts at 7:15pm. Tickets are £14 full, £12 concession, and free for students and under-16s. If you're planning on sticking around for the rest of the season, there's a 2026-2027 season ticket for £49 full and £42 concession.