The concert opens with Grace-Evangeline Mason’s To Breathe Now, which is the first performance of this orchestral arrangement of the third movement of her piece Upon Weightless Wings. This piece is inspired by the installation ‘To Breathe – A Mirror Woman’ (2006) by multidisciplinary artist Kimsooja, in which she transformed a palace into a glorious display of reflected rainbows. Celebrating the 50th birthday of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra’s Concertmaster, Carmine Lauri steps into the limelight to play Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 – the greatest masterpiece from a man considered one of the finest violinists of all time. After Wieniawski’s intense and invigorating music, we take a walk in the countryside courtesy of Beethoven. In the composer’s Symphony No. 6, which quickly attracted the nickname ‘Pastoral’, we step directly into the joy of the composer’s childhood and his thanksgiving for the wonders of the earth.