Cambridge University’s premier student-run orchestra presents an exciting programme of idealised impressions. The concert opens with Maurice Ravel’s well-loved ‘Pavane pour une infante défunte’ which the composer described as ‘an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court’.

Inspiration for Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Antar was derived from an Arabian legend in which Antar, a recluse living in the desert, kills a large bird to save a gazelle. Falling asleep, he dreams that the gazelle was the Queen of Palmyra, who, as a reward grants him three joys: vengeance, power, and love. The first movement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Suite depicts this narrative whilst the subsequent three explores each of the three joys respectively.

The concert will culminate with a performance of Dvořák’s renowned Symphony No.9 ‘From the New World’. Many of this symphony’s well-loved and folk-like melodies were inspired by the African American spirituals which, he thought, could be the basis of an ideal ‘American’ classical music.