Queen’s music made me start an orchestra

A MUSICIAN was so inspired by a classical score of the music of rock group Queen that she started her own orchestra in order to perform it.

Jasmine Huxtable-Wright, from Burnham, set up the Thames Valley Festival Orchestra just over a year ago and it will perform A Symphonic Tribute to Queen at Dorchester Abbey next month.

Songs will include Bicycle Race, Somebody to Love, Killer Queen and We Are the Champions with arrangements by Dee Palmer.

Jasmine, an oboeist who played with Henley Symphony Orchestra for a decade, says: “Our first performance of that programme was in September and then we did it again in December in Windsor.

“Then I thought maybe people were going to get tired of playing the same music and they said, ‘Oh no, we have to play the same
programme’.

“The music is so wonderful, which is why people are so enthusiastic about it and so keen to play it multiple times.”

Jasmine, who also plays in Crowthorne Symphony Orchestra and Slough Philharmonic, first heard Palmer’s score on the radio and fell in love with it.

She says: “About 15 years ago I heard one of the tracks, Somebody to Love, from the CD, which was recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996 and Dee Palmer wrote the arrangements.

“When I heard it I had to literally wait until the end of the piece for them to say what it was and I thought, ‘That is just amazing’. Then I went out and bought the CD.

“Then, having listened to it multiple times, I thought this was just the most wonderful composition of Queen music, which was recognisable but in different symphonic styles. You’ve got classical, you’ve got a bit of baroque, you’ve got jazz, you’ve got rock.

“Somebody to Love starts with the most wonderful oboe solo and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to play’. It’s about the fourth movement and every time I get there, I get goosebumps.

“There’s the most wonderful arrangement of Innuendo, which has a superb trombone solo and a superb trumpet solo.

“These guys who normally play in musicals and orchestras just can’t wait to be able to play this again because it’s the kind of piece that gives them so much exposure and they just love it.

“Dee Palmer did a series of other arrangements — there’s a Yes album, a Genesis album, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull.

“She was keyboard player in Jethro Tull for about four years back in the Seventies [when she was still David Palmer].

“All these symphonic tribute albums were written in very quick succession, the Queen one being about the last one.”

Jasmine’s task was to find out if the scores were available for performance. “ It was October 2022 when I actually contacted Dee Palmer and made an initial foray.

“I had found out that she was still alive because she’s 86, so that was good news, and she still had all the music and parts.

“They are not with a publisher, so you can’t buy them other than directly from her.

“I explained what I wanted to do and she sent me the scores in January last year.

“I had a look and got a couple of my conductor friends to have a look and then I arranged a workshop at Charvil Primary School hall for 65 of my wonderful musical friends.

“We played through all of the music from this Queen symphonic tribute and we were like, ‘Oh my goodness, when can we perform this?’”

The workshop and first two concerts were conducted by Stephen Ellery, who conducted the last two Henley Symphony Orchestra Christmas concerts at Christ Church in Henley and who plays soprano saxophone.

Jasmine says: “I tackled Stephen after the last Henley concert I did back in December 2022, having spent 10 years with them playing under Ian Brown’s tenure. He’s very enthusiastic.

“Two of the movements have soprano sax as the lead solo so he was just delighted. It just fitted perfectly.”

Stephen invited the orchestra to perform their debut at the Leytonstone Festival in East London in September and this was followed by the concert at the Church of St John the Baptist in Windsor in December.

Jasmine, who went to the Royal College of Music, was able to hand-pick her fellow orchestra members, including several Henley string players, Anna Del Nevo, Cerian Mellor, Carsten Maas and Frances Barton.

Other players come from West Forest Sinfonia, Slough Philharmonic, Windsor and Maidenhead Symphony Orchestra, Reading Symphony Orchestra and Newbury Symphony Orchestra.

Jasmine says: “I’ve never done something like this before, you know, literally not only start an orchestra but start a massive orchestra. It’s quite remarkable.

“I play first oboe because that was sort of my reason for being able to do all of this.”

The retired IT worker adds: “Fortunately, I’m in a position where I could dig in my own pocket to an extent in order to put these events on.

“Apart from the usual percussion and harp player, who you have to pay because that’s how it works in the amateur world, everybody else is playing because they want to play.

“It humbles me when I’ve got people saying to me, ‘I’ve turned something down because this is far more interesting’. It’s really lovely.”

• The Thames Valley Festival Orchestra plays Dee Palmer’s Passing Open Windows: A Symphonic Tribute to Queen at Dorchester Abbey on Saturday, April 20 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £25. For more information and to buy tickets, call 07702 577508, email thamesvalleyfestival
orchestra@gmail.com or visit thamesvalleyfestivalorchestra.org