Amaretti Chamber Orchestra

The Amaretti Chamber Orchestra is a small string orchestra established in 2004 consisting of experienced amateurs, music teachers and professional players.

The orchestra has a varied repertoire ranging from Bach to Britten and perform in the South Manchester area, with excursions to Buxton as part of the Festival Fringe.

We were very pleased to win Awards at the Buxton Festival Fringe in 2007 and 2011.

Concerts support many local charities and to date have raised over £23,000 for Francis House Children’s Hospice, Alzheimer’s Society, Macmillan Cancer Support, Amnesty International, St. Ann’s Hospice, Christie Hospital, Tsunami Disaster Fund, High Peak Hospicecare, Together Trust and the local branch of the NSPCC.

Buxton Fringe Review 2011:

It was great to welcome back the Amaretti to the Fringe under their new conductor Sinead Hayes. They began their concert with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll intriguingly arranged for strings. In fact the arrangement worked rather well with Siegfried's dashing horn call given to the violas and the strings cleverly evoking the Christmas morning when the piece was first performed as a birthday present for Wagner's wife.

And then a magical performance of Bach's double concerto with superb soloists Dewi Tudor Jones and Rosy Williams. Sinead had decided that no conductor was necessary for this work - and she was right. The ensemble was utterly disciplined and responsive to the soloists. It is many years since your reviewer has heard such a completely musically convincing performance of this work

After a short, enjoyable and typically twentieth century English Suite for Timothy written by his mother, Pamela Harrison, as a first birthday present and introduced by Timothy himself the orchestra gave an outstandingly fine performance of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings. The two Bach soloists joined the solo quartet with Kay Thomas, viola , and Mary Dainton, 'cello and together fulfilled the prodigious virtuoso technicalities that this composition calls for. This has to be one of the best concerts given by the Amaretti in Buxton and certainly a memorable highlight of this year's Fringe.

Peter Low