PHILOMUSICA, Aberystwyth’s award-winning symphony orchestra, teams up with one of Britain’s finest cellists, Hannah Roberts, for a performance of Elgar’s wonderful cello concerto at 8pm on Saturday, 5 December, at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

One of the best-loved concertos, the Elgar is both a requiem for those who died in the devastation of the First World War and for the composer’s own vanished world.

Unforgettable music, its poignant sincerity touches us with powerful intimacy and directness – fitting repertoire for Hannah, who won the prestigious Jaqueline du Pré Memorial Award and took the silver medal with the work in the Shell/LSO competition.

Conductor David Russell Hulme also directs the orchestra in Brahms’s exuberant Academic Festival Overture and Rachmaninoff’s powerful First Symphony.

A disastrous first performance under Glazunov – who was completely drunk on the podium! – got the symphony off to a bad start.

Today, though, it is regarded as one of Rachmaninoff’s finest works – taut and full of colour and contrast.