About The Sussex Symphony Orchestra

The SSO has received recognition of its work from the National Lottery, Foundation for Sport and the Arts and many 'household name' corporations, including American Express, EMI, Tate & Lyle and Lloyds TSB, to assist in purchasing vital equipment and to mount its ambitious concert programmes, which attract distinguished artists to the concert platform.
The orchestra has also received funding from local companies, including The French Group, Deloitte & Touche and Seeboard who wish to promote their work and become involved with 'the most exciting orchestra in the South' (The Times).

The SSO provides its audiences with opportunities to experience 'big' works not normally heard outside major centres, including Britten's 'War Requiem', Symphonies 2 & 5 by Mahler, Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring', Ravel's ballet suite, 'Daphnis et Chloé' and also some more unfamiliar, such as Macmillan's Percussion Concerto, and Glière's Harp Concerto.

The SSO also works with established and emerging composers, many of whom are local to the region, including Peter Copley, Paul Carr and Paul Lewis, regularly giving world premier performances of their work.

The SSO has now performed four concerts with the celebrated welsh superstar, Katherine Jenkins at huge outdoor events in front of many thousands of people at concerts which have been critically acclaimed.
The orchestra also works with local choirs and choral societies, including Brighton Festival Chorus, Sussex Chorus, Billingshurst Choral Society and The Angmering Chorale, often combining them to provide enormous choirs for monumental works that have included Verdi's Requiem, Elgar's 'Dream of Gerontius' and 'Carmina Burana' by Carl Orff. Choirs outside the region, like The Hertfordshire Chorus, have also chosen to perform with the orchestra.

The SSO also takes music into schools for 'hands on' experience, by mounting workshops using all sections of the orchestra. This is particularly important as music is not on the curriculum of many schools and the orchestra is well placed to introduce the joy and experience of live music to children of all ages.

As well as regular concert programmes, the orchestra has embarked upon a series of gala performances at Brighton Dome, where a selected composer's life story unfolds on stage in a semi-dramatised dialogue between the composer, played by an actor, and an interlocutor, played by a television presenter. In June 2006 the concert was slightly different as the orchestra played a huge selection of music from the movies with scenes from each one projected on a screen behind the orchestra, this concert was enormously popular and well received. The orchestra continues to plan spectacular events at the Dome and other venues for the future.