This year the LGSO’s Summer Concert will be part of the Pride Arts Programme and they invite you to join them the day after the parade and the parties for a Post-Pride Classical-Chillout. They begin with a Brazilian – Villa Lobos, whose ‘Bachianas Brassilieras’ fuses baroque harmonic structures with steamy South American rhythms. After Shostakovich’s popular jazz-influenced ‘Suite for Variety Orchestra’ they return from Russia with love for Berlioz’s ‘Symphony Fantastique’, a piece of French Romanticism which takes in a witches orgy and a shepherds’ duet by way of art, drugs and dancing.
London Gay Symphony Orchestra is the UK's oldest LGBT Orchestra and one of only a handful in the world. Founded in 1996, the LGSO has given concerts four times (or more) every year for the past sixteen years at venues throughout the UK including the Royal Festival Hall; toured internationally to Paris and Zagreb; performed with Jimmy Somerville, Simon Callow, Rosalind Plowright and Sue Perkins; recorded a score for the cult film Pervirella; commissioned new work from upcoming composers; and raised thousands of pounds for charities including Amnesty International, The Food Chain, Crusaid and Albert Kennedy Trust. The orchestra’s patrons include Sandi Toksvig, Paul Gambacinni, and Simon Fanshawe.