The welcome return of concert pianist Valerie Tryon to the platform for the final event of the season for this remarkable orchestra ensured that the evening was greeted with a triumphant accolade. Miss Tryon’s immaculate delivery of the ever popular Grieg Piano Concerto was testimony to her awesome technique, reinforced by her elegant performance of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat, a musician of extraordinary gifts.

It is all the more agreeable that a pianist of such renown can be seen and heard in the pleasant location of a country town. The other notable work, Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5, with its thunderous conclusion, demonstrated just how far this orchestra has come since it was formed less than 20 years ago. From a chamber group of modest pretensions but undoubted talent, the orchestra, under the expert and sympathetic tutelage of Dr Robert Jacoby, has grown to become a major force able to tackle great works with confidence and skill.

It is greatly to the credit of the players with leader Anita Hansen that they almost invariably rise to the occasion and perform challenging music with disciplined professionalism and with the big sound of a full symphony orchestra that is thrilling indeed and well beyond that of the chamber group they once were.

Reprinted by permission of the Dorset Echo.