Cardiff University Symphony Orchestra

The Symphony Orchestra consists of around 120 players each year.

Membership of the Symphony Orchestra is made up mainly of students from the School of Music, but a significant number of student members from other Schools in the University audition successfully each year, representing Engineering, Modern Languages, Medicine, Physics, Law, Psychology and more.

• Auditioned: Audition required
• Rehearsals: Monday, 18:05-21:00, Concert Hall

The Symphony Orchestra is open to all Cardiff University students with auditions taking place each September. For more information on auditioning please Elin Jones at jonese159@cardiff.ac.uk.

The Orchestra presents a range of exciting performances in a number of locations in South Wales, including St David’s Hall and BBC Hoddinott Hall. The orchestra has undertaken tours to China, Belgium, Germany and France and hope to travel again in 2019.

We released our first CD in 2014, featuring works by William Mathias and School of Music alumni, Yfat Soul Zisso, and Morfydd Owen, as well as the rarely-performed 1881 version of Liszt’s Totentanz.

Our second CD release featured the world premiere recordings of two works by Claude Debussy. The two works - Prélude à l’histoire de Tristan and No-Ja-Li ou Le Palais du Silence - were left unfinished when Debussy died in 1918. They have since been completed and orchestrated by Robert Orledge, a leading expert on French music - and were performed in public for the first time by Cardiff University Symphony Orchestra and Mark Eager in March 2015 as part of the Philharmonia Orchestra's City of Light festival.

A recent review of the CD in The Times said: "The novelty that really made me excited this week was Debussy’s Chinese ballet score No-ja-la - another unfinished work, originally earmarked for a 1914 London stage revue, more recently restored to life in a brilliantly effective reconstruction by Robert Orledge. Its premiere performance by excellent Cardiff University forces is the highlight of City of Light: New Discoveries."

Both CDs are released on the Prima Facie label.