Kimichi Symphony Orchestra

Welcome to the home of the Midlands most ambitious and daring symphony orchestra – KSO.
“This scratch group of players gave us a Rite of Spring of a confidence, precision, colour and visceral excitement with an adrenaline which many full time professional outfits would find hard to match”
Christopher Morely, Birmingham Post, 2018

KSO was founded by Sally Alexander, it’s Principal Conductor is Keith Slade and the Leader is Charlotte Moseley. We rehearse a handful of times before our concerts and stage rare and insurmountable repertoire. It is for this reason that we are blessed with an orchestra full of some of the best players in the country.

Kimichi Symphony Orchestra was formed to perform The Rite of Spring  in January 2018. This piece, often performed, was taken to new heights by KSO with the addition of dancers that performed the original Nijinsky choreography led by Attiye Partridge. A 5* review and critical acclaim lead to the orchestra (and dancers!) touring to Prague in the October of 2018 to perform at the iconic Rudolfinum.

For both of these events, we were joined by Internationally renowned cellist Dr. Richard Jenkinson who performed the Elgar Cello Concerto in Birmingham and the Dvorak Cello Concerto in Prague, just meters from where Dvorak himself sat in the Rudolfinum.

In January 2019, KSO returned to the Bramall to perform Verdi’s Requiem before embarking on another tour of Prague later in the year with an all-Brahms programme including a performance in the Mirror Chapel.

As 2020 dawned, KSO took to the Bramall once more with a 4* “triumph” of The Firebird full ballet (as opposed to the oft-performed suites) complete with dancers this time choreographed by Francesca Andrews and our returning costumier Jay Emme.

The ambitious, daring, complicated and altogether impossible vision of Sally Alexander is met with aplomb by her team and an orchestra membership over 100 players who return time after time to take part in ‘life-changing’ musical moments.A third tour to Prague in October 2020 is already booked with January 2021 already looking to be KSO’s most ambitious yet . . .

“Dear all,
I’ve been thinking about why the Kimichi Symphony Orchestra works the way that it does.
I’ve been lucky enough to play in some of the country’s finest non-professional orchestras (and a fair bit of pro stuff), but never quite got the feeling I get here.
We are so lucky to have Charlotte who plays like an angel. Keith is inspiration personified, and there is talent everywhere you look. From the first note in that Rite of Spring rehearsal you could feel something not easily explained.
Somehow it produces more than the sum of it’s parts, and that is something rare and to be treasured.

Thank you all.”Les Whitehouse – Trombone