Solent Symphony Orchestra

Conductor - Steve Tanner                Leader - Kirstie Robertson

CORNUCOPIA

Our soloists on 5 March 2022

  CORNUCOPIA is a French horn quartet made up of professional players from Hampshire and Dorset. Fiona Brockhurst, Bridget Holton, Ieuan Davies and David Ansell have a wealth of experience between them and have all played and taught in a huge variety of places and groups, ranging from the National Youth Jazz Orchestra to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and as a warm up act for the Bachelors! As you would expect, they frequently meet up in various combinations to play in orchestras and chamber groups. They started playing as a quartet for fun in informal settings 8 or 9 years ago. Their debut public performance was in fact in the bandstand in the Dorchester Borough Gardens. Finding they had a good chemistry within the group, the players decided to look at performing more conventional concerts.

  Their repertoire includes pieces written specifically for the horn quartet, arrangements of popular tunes together with some old favourites in new guises. As lockdown restrictions eased the group kept their spirits up, by getting together wherever and whenever they could. They played for an open air tea-party and under a lamp outside a school at Christmas, rehearsing in Fiona’s garden in Fordingbridge. The neighbours were very tolerant – even forgiving us trying some new Christmas pieces in September. Some walkers in the New Forest were surprised to find them, socially distanced of course, tootling under the trees.

CORNUCOPIA can present concerts with different themes such as “An Evening with .. “,  “The Best Instrument Ever – How the horn came to be! “, “Horns at Christmas “ etc

  The players’ passion shines through the group’s strapline:  CORNUCOPIA -HORN OF PLENTY AND PLENTY OF HORNS !