A Royal Celebration with the RBSO
Bangkok, Thailand, May 7, 2025 / TRAVELINDEX / On the auspicious occasion of His Majesty the King’s Coronation on 4th May 2019, the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (RBSO) will perform a concert entitled “Soundscapes”, which includes music from Thailand, France and Conductor Douglas Bostock’s native country, Great Britain. It will take place in the Main Hall of the Thailand Cultural Centre (TCC) on Friday, 9th May, at 7:30 pm.
“Siam Soundscapes”, which opens the programme, was composed by National Artist Narongrit Dhamabutra in 2024 to celebrate the 72nd birthday of His Majesty the King. The main concept of the piece is to bring together various musical sounds from different regions of Thailand and intertwine them into a unified whole. This symbolises the profound influence of the Thai monarchy, past and present, which has reigned over the nation with great majesty, extending its benevolence to all corners of the kingdom and bringing peace and prosperity to the Thai people.
The soloist of the evening will be the renowned Japanese Cellist, Dai Miyata, making his debut in Thailand on this occasion. In 2009, he won the Grand Prix in the 9th Rostropovich Cello Competition, becoming the first Japanese competitor to do so. In fact, he won first prize in all of the contests in which he has participated. Miyata has since been actively performing as a soloist with major orchestras and as a chamber musician in Europe and Asia. With the RBSO, he will perform Camille Saint-Saëns’ charming yet virtuoso Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor, composed in 1872. It is widely considered to be the greatest of all cello concertos.
Two works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of England’s most significant composers, make up the second half of the “Royal Celebration” concert. Firstly, his beautiful arrangement of the famous tune, “Greensleeves”, attributed to none other than Britain’s King Henry VIII. The Fantasia on “Greensleeves” is scored for two solo flutes, harp and strings alone and familiar in this guise to music lovers the world over. It is followed by Vaughan Williams’ 8th Symphony, which he completed in 1955, the same year as Maestro Bostock’s birth. He and the Symphony both celebrate their 70th this year. The composer, whose family name is Vaughan Williams (not Williams, as is often mistakenly assumed) was in his eighties when he wrote his relatively short 8th Symphony. He wanted to show himself to still be a composer “young at heart” by incorporating a wealth of percussion instruments in the score, including tuned gongs, an idea he got from hearing Puccini’s opera “Turandot” about a Chinese princess. The outer movements of the Symphony are for full orchestra, whereas the humorous second movement is for winds alone, and the lyrical third is for the strings section. The work closes with a glorious explosion of orchestral colour, crowned by the celebratory chiming of bells. The RBSO will be giving the Thai premiere of one of the most wonderful British symphonies. Not to be missed!
Buy Tickets:
www.thaiticketmajor.com/concert/rbso-2025-royal-celebration-soundscapes.html
