The Royal Forest of Dean Orchestra are to commemorate their 25th anniversary with a concert at the Forest Theatre in Coleford this Saturday evening.

The orchestra will be playing music by legendary Czech composer Antonin Dvořák and Ralph Vaughan-Williams, as well as a specially commissioned piece of music by young composer Freya Ireland. Viv Hargreaves, Vice-Chairman of the Royal Forest of Dean Orchestra, is expecting the concert to be a night to remember. She said: “Saturday evening promises to be a great occasion for everyone involved in the orchestra. We are absolutely delighted to be welcoming back members of the original line-up of the orchestra who played in our very first concert back in 1993. It’s our great pleasure to be welcoming them back, they will have the honour of cutting our 25th anniversary cake.

“We’ve also got a number of special guests attending the concert, including Dame Janet Trotter who we are particularly excited to welcome. Dame Janet has been incredibly helpful and supportive to the local area, so we were all thrilled when she confirmed she would be attending.”

The Royal Forest of Dean Orchestra have been performing for 25 years and are widely regarded as one of the finest musical ensembles in the South West. Viv continued: “We are very lucky to be blessed with an abundance of talent. Our pianist, Adam Herron, has the most incredible passion for music. He performed at the Keyboard Category Final of BBC Young Musician 2018, which was broadcast on BBC Four Television, and in 2017 he was unanimously made the recipient of the Irish Heritage Music Award following a lauded performance at London’s Wigmore Hall. We’re very lucky to have him. All of the members of the orchestra are so dedicated and committed, it’s great to see such passion for music.”

Also performing on Saturday evening will be Freya Ireland who has written a specially commissioned piece for the concert. Viv added: “Freya, a finalist in the Gloucestershire Young Musician of the Year a couple of years ago, is a superb young composer who has written a piece called ‘Serpents of the Dean’ which we can’t wait to hear. She’s so dedicated to her music and is sure to go far.

“Our last rehearsal is on Thursday evening. Both Freya and Adam are going to be there, and we’ll be able to go through everything ahead of the performance on Saturday which is very exciting.

“Our last performance was the spring concert at Newnham at the end of March. We had a couple of weeks off over the Easter period but have been practising for our anniversary concert since then. We get together and practice once a week for two hours at Newnham Primary School. We’re all on the countdown to 7:30pm on Saturday now, it promises to be a fantastic evening.”