Inviting Hallé

Last Train to Tomorrow

Smetana Má Vlast: Vltava
Humperdinck Brother Come and Dance With Me
Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
Carl Davis Last Train to Tomorrow (world premiere, Hallé commission)

Carl Davis conductor | Hallé Children’s Choir
Young actors from the Manchester Metropolitan University School of Theatre
David Shirley director | Text by Hiawyn Oram

In the months between the Kristallnacht pogrom of 9–10 November 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War, nearly 10,000 children were sent, without their parents, out of Nazi Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia to safety in Great Britain. This remarkable act of humanity has been the inspiration for Carl Davis’s poignant work. Commissioned specifically for the Hallé Children’s Choir and featuring young Manchester actors, this extraordinary performance will tell the children’s story: the sadness of what has been left behind and the hope for what lies ahead.

The concert mirrors the journey taken by the children, starting in the Czech Republic with Smetana’s best known, stirring piece, which became an anthem for the people of Prague. Humperdinck’s song from his opera Hansel and Gretel was famously recorded in 1929 by the Hallé and over 250 local children in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, under Sir Hamilton Harty. It was released alongside Nymphs and Shepherds, the story of which was told on stage last year in Victoria Wood’s acclaimed drama That Day We Sang. The performance also features Benjamin Britten’s iconic introduction to the orchestra for young people.

This is a concert that will inform and inspire and, at the parent’s discretion, is for the whole family.

Last Train to Tomorrow is a world premiere, commissioned by the Hallé Concerts Society and supported by the PRS for Music Foundation and the Kobler Trust.

£13 adults | £7 children | Family ticket £33 (any four people including at least one child)