Chineke! Orchestra: Romeo and Juliet

With their timeless stories brought to life in music, Shakespeare-inspired works by Coleridge-Taylor and Prokofiev bookend this concert of sweeping emotion. The concert opens with Coleridge-Taylor’s Othello Suite, brimming with vivid colour and theatrical flair. Originally composed for a production of Shakespeare’s Othello, the Suite distils the drama, romance and tension of the play into five evocative movements. Next is Richard Thompson’s The Shadow of Dawn, a song cycle exploring themes of race, emotion and nature inspired by the works of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Love, fate and tragedy collide in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet – an orchestral masterpiece that brings Shakespeare’s enduring story vividly to life.