Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra
07 December 2025
Joanna MacGregor
Accordionist: Alise Silina
Alise Silina is a highly charismatic and responsive performer to watch and it’s a terrific treat to see an accordion concerto played live. Latvian born, and currently studying for a Masters at Royal Academy of Music, Silina sits almost next to conductor, Joanna Macgregor, rather than in front her and looks continually to her left and right so that the piece becomes effectively a grand scale trio between the two of them and BPO’s leader, Ruth Rogers,
Vaclav Trojan’s Fairy Tales: A Concerto for Accordion (1959) comprises seven colourful, descriptive movements full of narrative. In the first, Let us Dance into Fairy Tales, I enjoyed Selina’s chatty chirrups and the The Magic Box is fun almost in the manner of Jingle Bells as Selina moved with seamless, insouciant elegance between moods on her very versatile instrument. The highlight of this enjoyable performance was, for me, the Wagner-esque dragon menacingly unwinding itself in the fourth movement in a rather splendid cadenza.
After the interval we got Thomas de Hartmann’s Koliadky: Noels Ukrainiens. You have to hand it to MacGregor and her team for finding unusual repertoire. This piece premiered in Paris in 1940, was performed on BBC radio in 1946 and, as far as anyone knows, nowhere else since and certainly not in Britain. The melodies – all eight of them – sound like carols but are, in fact, original compositions. I admired the bassoon work in Les rois mages and the trombones and tuba were magnificent in La veille de l’épiphanie. It’s an atmospheric piece which the orchestra played with commitment.
And so to the familiar warmth of Tchaikovsky’s eight-part Nutcracker Suite delivered here with warm affection but without wallowing. There was pleasing precision in the overture and beautiful celeste work in Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Xiaowen Shang rocking gently in time with her playing. It’s good to hear such immaculate pizzicato from the strings too. The accelerando at the end of Trepak was as joyfully exaggerated as I’ve ever heard it and Waltz of the Flowers came at a nippy speed so that it felt invigorating rather than slushy.
All in all, then an interesting Christmas concert (sort of) for which the hall was fuller than sometimes which is good to see.
It had, however begun with Eventyr: Once Upon a Time which, despite MacGregor’s valiant attempt to big it up before we heard remains distinctly dreary, as work by Delius so often is. It did nothing to launch the concert in any sort of festive mood. Of course, though, it showcased some fine playing especially from the percussion department, including good xylophone work. The performance was, inevitably, supported by the Delius Trust. I sometimes irreverently think that if this well meaning organisation didn’t pay up on these occasions nobody would ever choose to play or listen to the work of Frederick Delius. And I’m afraid that I, for one, wouldn’t miss it.
