CENTRAL ENGLAND ENSEMBLE...

...music from the Heart

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2012 is the Central England Ensemble's tenth anniversary year. We are set to celebrate our first decade in style with the world premiere of Andrew Downes' Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, conducted by our Music Director Anthony Bradbury, on Sunday 21 October 2012 at Birmingham Town Hall. In this Olympic year we are pleased and honoured that legal firm Irwin Mitchell have agreed to sponsor our concert, proceeds from which will be donated to the UK Paralympic Association.

We light the torch for 2012 at 7.30 pm on Sunday 19 February with a concert at Carr's Lane Church Centre, Birmingham, featuring Stravinsky's thrilling Firebird Suite and Midlands composer Tony Bridgewater's Second Piano Concerto under the baton of our conductor Lee Armstrong. Click here for details of this concert and of our full programme for 2012.

2012 sees the CEE's third CONCERTO COMPETITION. The deadline for entries is 25 May 2012. Please click on these links for competition rules and entry form.

The prize concert for the 2010 Concerto Competition was among the highlights of 2011 for the CEE. Sadly the winner, Martyn Johannesberg, was indisposed, but we were delighted to welcome rising star Soh-Yon Kim, who stepped in at the last moment and wowed both orchestra and audience with her exhilarating performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. It was an evening none of us will forget, and we hope to see Soh-Yon in Birmingham again soon. (For a flavour of the excitement, you can catch her performing Ysaÿe's Sonata for Solo Violin Op. 27 no. 6 on Youtube here.)

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Founded in 2001 by dynamic Worcestershire violinist and pedagogue Anna Downes, CEE brings together talented musicians from across the region to perform ambitious symphonic repertoire. We take pride in showcasing new work by Midlands composers in all our concerts.

"Rewards come from ambition..." - read the Birmingham Post's review of our concert of opera favourites on 24 February 2008.

Updated NL/ EC 03.01.12