Day 8: Elgar, Britten & Dvorak

St Paul’s Church was packed to the rafters last night for the Barn Dance & Dinner.

Our caterers came all the way from Leicester, while the music was more local – the rustic sounds of Liverpool band The Travelling People.

Meanwhile, over at The Old Mill pub, other festgoers enjoyed a pint or two at the Acoustic Night and Open Mic, with Joe Colburn, Chris Bayley and friends. As well as the talented crowd that gather there each Thursday to make music, we welcomed artists from a bit further afield – including Sax Haven, a Gershwin-playing saxophone trio from Ormskirk.

Tonight (7.30pm, Prescot Parish Church) we welcome Wirral Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jonathan Small, Principal Oboe Player of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

They’ll open the concert with Benjamin Britten’s stirring Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, in honour of the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Then Gethyn Jones, also of the RLPO, will play the solo in Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a work made famous in the sixties by the late Jacqueline du Pré.

Dvorak’s masterful Symphony No. 8 will end the evening’s programme.

Tickets are available on the door for £8 – an excellent price for an orchestra, conductor and soloist the calibre of tonight’s performers.

Pictured: The Cello Player, by Thomas Eakins (1896)