Hannah Kendall – The Spark Catchers
Claude Debussy (orchestrated by Colin Matthews) – Selection from Préludes: La Puerta del Vino, Ondine, La fille aux cheveux de lin, La cathédrale engloutie
Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 5

Smith Square Hall, Westminster, London SW1P 3HF

14 November 2026, 7.30pm

Marc Dooley conductor
Tom Evans leader

Hannah Kendall’s ‘The Spark Catchers’ is inspired by a poem by Lemn Sissay, commissioned for the London 2012 Olympics, which pays tribute to the women and girls employed at a match factory in London’s East End, who went on strike in 1888 protesting their hazardous working conditions.

A selection of Debussy’s piano Préludes, reimagined for orchestra by Colin Matthews, evokes the Alhambra’s imposing Wine Gate, a mischievous water nymph, a portrait of ‘the girl with the flaxen hair’, and a legendary cathedral rising from the sea.

The concert concludes with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which spans extremes of emotion, from the darkness of its opening funeral march to an exuberant finale, with the famous Adagietto at its heart.