About Hallam Sinfonia
After a varied, exciting 2025, with collaborations including a completely new venture, a programme featuring a dance group, Hallam Sinfonia is now looking forward to 2026. We continue to work regularly with Jon Malaxetxebarria, our Musical Director, even though he has now moved back to his native Spain.
Originally set up as a small chamber orchestra, our repertoire nowadays extends from the baroque to the 21st century, including large-scale romantic works, and from the mainstream classics to film music and children’s concerts. 2026 also sees the first of our ‘Concerto Showcase’ features, solo items performed by members of the orchestra, and the return of ‘Passenger Seats’, popular with families and children, offering members of the audience the opportunity to sit amongst the orchestral players.
The year kicks off early with a string programme in February built around Richard Strauss’s very special work for 23 solo strings, Metamorphosen. Other highlights of the year include the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story in May and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade in June, the latter finally rescheduled from June 2020 when the world had turned upside-down!
2026 collaborations include another Concerteenies concert with Polly Ives and the Christmas concerts at the Town Hall with Steel City Choristers. These seem to have become an annual fixture; we are grateful to the Lord Mayor for providing the beautiful venue. These collaborative concerts and Passenger Seats enable us to reach out to families and children and to new audiences.
We rehearse at High Storrs School in Sheffield, where we give some of our concerts. Rehearsals are on Thursdays and Fridays, in blocks, usually during the three weeks before each concert. Players interested in joining us are welcome to make enquiries. We currently have vacancies for violins and violas. Although we may not have a vacancy for other instruments, we are always interested in knowing who’s out there! If you're interested in playing with us, please email hallam.sinfonia@gmail.com
Who's who
Musical Director
Committee
Jeremy Dawson* (chair)
Hannah Watson* (secretary)
Charlie Hardwick* (treasurer)
George Breakwell (fixing coordinator)
Charlotte Kenyon (PR coordinator)
Kathryn Hathaway (concerts manager)
Mary Dougherty (membership secretary)
Hannah Thompson-Smith (leader)
* indicates committee member is also a trustee of the charity. Hallam Sinfonia is registered charity number 1112838.
Hallam Sinfonia is proud to be a member ensemble of Classical Sheffield.
Classical Sheffield aims to bring together all of the classical music being made here in Sheffield and the people making it happen as we do our best to share it with the rest of the city. Sheffield is home to a wealth of talented orchestras, a variety of choirs, aspiring soloists, conductors, composers and everything in between and it is only here where you will find it all in one place. They have already held three hugely successful city-wide Classical Weekend Festivals and have introduced classical music to thousands of new audience members.
See more about Classical Sheffield on their website...
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