St George’s honours its patron saint in concert every 23 April, but this evening will go down as one of its most celebratory, with the first appearance of the Chineke! Orchestra outside London. Appearing in chamber orchestra form, Chineke! gives a platform to black and ethnic-minority musicians, and it was a neat move to open with a work by the Guadeloupe-born Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who was roughly the contemporary of Mozart. The overture to his opera L’Amant Anonyme, in three-movement sinfonia style, was given real rhythmic spark to point up the melodic charm.
Many of the enthusiastic audience had clearly come to see the BBC Young Musician winner, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. They were rewarded with a stylish performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C (Hob VIIb/1). In the central adagio, Kanneh-Mason balanced expressive singing tone with careful, instinctive, dynamic shading. He took the allegro molto at fearless, breakneck speed, the passage work impressively controlled. A solo encore was further testimony to his prodigious gift, and his arrangement of a traditional Jewish song was plangent and subtly elaborated.
On the podium, Jonathon Heyward, assistant conductor at the Hallé, made his own mark. He drew poised playing from the Chineke! musicians, first in Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and then in Mozart’s Symphony No 29 in A, the irrepressible bounce of its finale’s dotted rhythms every bit as spirited as the composer intended.
