Kent Sinfonia – Biography – February 2026
Kent Sinfonia is a freelance professional orchestra, comprising skilled musicians from Kent and the surrounding region; many also play with major London orchestras.
Our work aims to build the future of classical orchestral music through programmes for all ages. Our education projects support children’s musical development, especially those lacking exposure to live orchestral music. We aim to enhance children’s development and overall learning with interactive workshops and concerts, introducing a hugely diverse range of music. Our children’s programme, Birds and Beasts!, has been performed in multiple venues.
Kent Sinfonia supports contemporary music and also has a special interest in performing works by lesser-known 20th-century British composers. Our first album, Lost England, featured George Butterworth and Walter Leigh, both killed in the World Wars.
Our creative practice is rooted in more than 20 years operating as a professional orchestra and registered charity, with proven ability to deliver diverse concerts and events cost-effectively to a high standard. Examples include three tours to China, regular engagements performing with choral societies, playing for performance runs of multiple operas, and devising and implementing concerts and workshops for schools.
Kent Sinfonia performed at Les Musicales de Redon, a music festival in Brittany, in July 2022, with two concerts, including one for children. Conducted by James Ross, the concerts were successfully performed to large audiences.
In February 2024, Kent Sinfonia, with James Ross, worked with the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and Albion Records in recording sessions on the theme of Vaughan Williams and Shakespeare. These included RVW’s music written during 1910–13 for Stratford Shakespeare Company performances, plus arrangements and works by other composers dedicated to Vaughan Williams. The recording was released on 1 November 2024 to acclaimed reviews. Downloads and streaming are available, along with albums from Kent Sinfonia and the RVW Society / Albion Records.
In 2024, the orchestra also began a partnership project with Cranbrook School, Kent, to perform workshops, concerts and other events, including working with the students. In March 2025, the school hosted two Kent Sinfonia Spring Concert Project performances for Cranbrook students and children from Cranbrook Primary School. Both concerts were successfully received with great enjoyment. As part of the project, the Kent Sinfonia Wind Quintet also performed its demo-concert programme during visits to several other local primary schools.
We were delighted to receive grant funding support towards our work for the Spring Concerts Project from the D’Oyly Carte Trust, the Kent Community Foundation and the Whitehead Monckton Trust.
Kent Sinfonia is currently resident orchestra for two outstanding choral societies: Ashtead Choral Society, based in Epsom, Surrey, conducted by Andrew Storey; and Sussex Chorus, based in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, conducted by Stephen Anthony Brown. We very much enjoy working with them and are grateful for their ongoing support and enthusiasm. We also look forward to future exciting performances with both choral societies.
Further plans include more work with Cranbrook School and other schools in Kent or further afield. Ongoing visits to primary schools are also planned, with Kent Sinfonia ensembles including wind quintet, string quartet, brass quintet and percussion duos. The quintet has already been invited to perform for schools in the Tunbridge Wells area. There are also plans for possible opera performances involving schools, and orchestral score accompaniment to films, such as The Snowman, previously performed by Kent Sinfonia with conductor James Ross at the Winter Gardens, Margate, in 2019.
Concert reviews:
Since the days of Purcell and Handel, English composers have often excelled at royal music, or more accurately, marches and anthems for great regal occasions. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) did not quite fit into this tradition, with Elgar, Bliss and Walton largely assuming that role during his lifetime. He used to say he would never write such music. He nevertheless famously composed for Elizabeth ll’s coronation (‘O Taste and See,’ a setting of Psalm 34, and ‘All People That On Earth Do Dwell,’ based on Psalm 100) although in a way that stressed the link between monarch and people – which is characteristic of his complex character and work, bridging ancient and modern, mystical and democratic.
Vaughan Williams also wrote for monarchs less directly, in his many incidental orchestral and vocal pieces for (or inspired by) Shakespeare’s history plays – dramas laying bare the trials and tribulations of the kings of old, the dark moments of their reigns as well as the moments of jubilation. Ironically enough, on the strength of this latest CD release from Albion Records, it could be argued that Vaughan Williams was in fact the most prolific servant of the Royal remit of any English composer, commemorating England’s battles, bloodshed, dynastic struggles, civil wars and crownings of Kings across the entire span of the country’s life as a monarchy.
Shakespeare being the inspiration, the disc offers us such gems as the 1913 Stratford Suite, in which ‘Greensleeves’ and several other famous tunes from Tudor antiquity make an appearance. Throughout the 72 minutes of music carefully curated and conducted by Vaughan Williams expert, Dr. James Ross, the listener will recognise folk-tunes which appear in other guises, such as Henry lV’s ‘Princess Royal’ — also heard in the quick-march opening to the composer’s jaunty ‘Sea Songs,’ ‘Halfe Hannikin’ (found in Sir John in Love and Fat Knight), Dowland’s ‘Pavane Lachrymae’ which was used by Sir Granville Bantock in Old English Dances, and finally, the noble plainsong melody which makes an appearance in the semi-final movement of Tippett’s Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles, and in the Allan Gray film score for the classic Powell and Pressburger film, A Canterbury Tale — the uplifting ‘Angelus ad Virginem.’
However, what makes this recording such an exciting find, the production such a success — so atmospheric and authentic, throughout — is the use of a smaller orchestra, in this instance the poised, elegant, silvery strings (listen out for the latter quality in Track 18) of the often-overlooked Kent Sinfonia. Recorded in Kent churches (Wye and Hythe) James Ross’s players bring an atmosphere of the theatre to the proceedings, but sacrifice nothing in the expansive and spine-tingling moments in Richard ll, or in Henry V’s appointment with destiny in the “vasty fields of France” (the seven-minute long ‘Henry V Overture’).
The recording has plenty of ‘air’ around it, so the dry acoustic of studios and modern concert-halls is, mercifully, avoided. A Tudorish brass sound, spot-on woodwind and martial side-drums ring out from the spaces of the mediaeval churches (so often the best recording venues), whilst the choral contribution of the Albion Singers in Henry lV – especially the rich baritones – suggests a larger number of singers than were actually present at the making of the record. Guildhall-trained soprano, Eloise Irving, also brings her magic to solo songs, such as in the famous melancholy setting from Othello, ‘Sing willow, willow willow.’
With informative programme notes, excellent photography and artwork from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society’s John Francis, the CD is complete joy from start to finish: my ‘album of the year.’
CD details: Vaughan Williams, Royal Throne of Kings, Albion Records, ALBCD062
Stuart Millson, ‘Sounds of sovereigns’, Posted on
‘…the Kent Sinfonia responded generously to Nicholas Jenkins’ characteristically expansive direction, not least in the many deftly-edged orchestral solos…’ (Mark Pappenheim: ‘Opera’ magazine – Vaughan Williams: The Poisoned Kiss – performances with New Sussex Opera)
‘Each of these orchestral works of Ravel are by no means easy for any orchestra, but from the excellent playing in the opening of ‘Mother Goose’, it was clear that the Kent Sinfonia was up to the task, with some excellent individual and corporate musicianship’ (Robert Matthew-Walker: Musical Opinion magazine – concert, St. John’s, Smith Square, London).
‘The playing of Kent Sinfonia was a sheer delight as they filled the church with a full-on, well- blended sound, with many opportunities for the individual instrumentalists to shine in Haydn’s masterpiece. Whether playing in their own right or underpinning the soloists and choir, they were consistently superb…For me, one of the memorable highlights was Lucinda Cox singing of the creation of various birds with the wind section of Kent Sinfonia having immense fun interpreting their sounds’’…’The whole event was a joy from beginning to end…’ (Ashtead Choral Society concert:- Haydn: The Creation 2019 – review by Sue S. Meyer)
‘Conductor Nicholas Jenkins drew a clean and poised performance from the orchestra…’ (Ruth Elleson: Opera Today – Offenbach: Die Rheinnixen (The Rhine Fairies – performances with New Sussex Opera)
‘…the Kent Sinfonia was faultless in its various renditions of familiar and well-loved pieces.’ ‘… a second superb performance with the Kent Sinfonia….this was a night that will be remembered for a very long while’. (Festival Proms, Tonbridge Castle – Kent & Sussex Courier)
Lost England CD reviews:
‘…lightness of touch…the accomplished performers of the Kent Sinfonia…a joy throughout’ (Keith Ames: Musician – Musicians’ Union journal)
‘Unique and uniquely valuable recordings of Walter Leigh from Malcolm Riley and the Kent Sinfonia’ (Rob Barnett: MusicWeb International/British Music Society).
‘…a valuable issue, well played by the Kent Sinfonia, whose fresh sound I like…Strongly recommended’ (Philip Scowcroft: Journal into Melody [The Robert Farnon Society])