RSNO The Snowman Usher Hall Edinburgh 22nd December 2023 Review
RSNO Christmas Concert featuring “The Snowman” at the Usher Hall Edinburgh this evening has, if this full venue is anything to go by, become an annual fixture of many people’s festive schedule.
This event always sees the RSNO in a far more relaxed mood, and the importance of getting young children into a concert hall (or any venue) to listen to music of any kind cannot be underestimated.
The big attraction of this special early evening programme which started at 6.30pm was of course the chance to watch a screening of the 1982 animated film of the 1978 Raymond Briggs now classic book accompanied by the live music score performed by the RSNO and narrated this year by Hugh Dennis. Together film, music, and narrator blended seamlessly in this production, but I am sure that this is only due to a lot of work and dedication by everyone involved to make RSNO The Snowman such a success year after year. It is always interesting too to watch how young children who have grown up with CGI and computer graphics all around them are still enthralled by old fashioned animation, someone telling a story, and music. Let us hope that this never ends.
The Snowman is of course one part of this festive programme with the second half being devoted to the RSNO taking us on a festive journey through Christmas songs that included, amongst others, both traditional (Silent Night, Oh Come All Ye Faithful) and more modern (The Penguin Song, Music from Frozen) and as always a few surprises. This was well and truly the RSNO and Neil Ferris Conductor (with his fine red Christmas jacket on) and presenter Hugh Dennis in full festive mode.
All of this is of course a bit of a sugar coated fantasy Christmas wonderland, but there is nothing wrong with that and judging from the response of the audience young and old tonight, everyone was loving their trip into The Snowman’s fantasy world with the RSNO.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This event always sees the RSNO in a far more relaxed mood, and the importance of getting young children into a concert hall (or any venue) to listen to music of any kind cannot be underestimated.
The big attraction of this special early evening programme which started at 6.30pm was of course the chance to watch a screening of the 1982 animated film of the 1978 Raymond Briggs now classic book accompanied by the live music score performed by the RSNO and narrated this year by Hugh Dennis. Together film, music, and narrator blended seamlessly in this production, but I am sure that this is only due to a lot of work and dedication by everyone involved to make RSNO The Snowman such a success year after year. It is always interesting too to watch how young children who have grown up with CGI and computer graphics all around them are still enthralled by old fashioned animation, someone telling a story, and music. Let us hope that this never ends.
The Snowman is of course one part of this festive programme with the second half being devoted to the RSNO taking us on a festive journey through Christmas songs that included, amongst others, both traditional (Silent Night, Oh Come All Ye Faithful) and more modern (The Penguin Song, Music from Frozen) and as always a few surprises. This was well and truly the RSNO and Neil Ferris Conductor (with his fine red Christmas jacket on) and presenter Hugh Dennis in full festive mode.
All of this is of course a bit of a sugar coated fantasy Christmas wonderland, but there is nothing wrong with that and judging from the response of the audience young and old tonight, everyone was loving their trip into The Snowman’s fantasy world with the RSNO.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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