Fantasia Orchestra returns to Proms at St Jude’s, collaborating with the world’s premier solo percussionist: Dame Evelyn Glennie. Always a highlight of Fantasia’s season, this year’s appearance at Proms at St Jude’s opens the festival. At the centre of the programme are two percussion concertos – by Vivaldi (arranged for solo marimba) and Duddell. The second half features two highlights of the Romantic repertoire: Puccini’s Crisantemi and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. Tchaikovsky’s enduring piece is abundant in melody and drama, and culminates with a thrilling close.

Thrill to the sound of the world’s premier solo percussionist, Grammy® award-winning Dame Evelyn Glennie playing marimba, vibraphone, crotales and snare drum. She performs worldwide and paved the way for orchestras globally to feature percussion concerti when she played the first percussion concerto in the history of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 1992. As a profoundly deaf woman, she founded The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, which aims to improve communication and social cohesion by encouraging everyone to discover new ways of listening in order to inspire, to create, to engage and to empower. Tonight she performs Vivaldi and Duddell with Fantasia Orchestra, led by founder Tom Fetherstonhaugh.

Fantasia performed at the 2024 BBC Proms. This concert will include Dame Evelyn’s performance of Proms at St Jude’s winning Fanfare Competition entry.