South Coast Symphonia

The South Coast Symphonia is a brand-new, professional-standard orchestra formed in 2022 by its Musical Director, Neil Ogley, under the banner of Titchfield Festival Theatre.

Over the August Bank Holiday of 2022, this orchestra performed two inaugural concerts against the beautiful backdrop of Titchfield Abbey, with 40 of Hampshire’s finest musicians on stage together with The Titchfield Festival Chorus. Both evenings were sold out - with over 2,500 people attending!

Already for 2023, SCS have more than 20 concerts booked – at such venues as Portchester Castle, Fort Brockhurst, Portsmouth Guildhall and the brand-new Arden Theatre at Titchfield, before returning to Titchfield Abbey in September for a reprise of their incredibly successful “Last Night at the Proms.”

Among the musicians on stage in August ‘22 were younger players (some only in their teens) playing alongside the more experienced pros. SCS are committed to cultivating and nurturing musical talent amongst young people, so have formed the South Coast Symphonia Junior and South Coast Symphonia Youth Orchestras - to ensure that music can be played by the very young through to the very experienced. Our aim is to help this talent grow – from the early beginnings to somebody taking their place on a professional stage; someone who, otherwise, may not have got the chance.

When Titchfield Festival Theatre staged Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!” to sell-out audiences in June 2022, it was SCS members who made up the pit orchestra; and are doing so again for the forthcoming “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and a new adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” for which Neil, our MD, is writing the original score.

Other projects are on the way too: The SCS Big Band, playing the classics of that era, and the SCS Dance Orchestra, a 10-piece function band guaranteed to get you dancing through the decades – from Glenn Miller to Olly Murs via The Beatles, Tina Turner, Chic, and much, much more!

Do you want live background music for a dinner or corporate function? Then our Palm Court Trio, String Quartet or Chamber Orchestra will be just what you need - because whatever the occasion, South Coast Symphonia can deliver the music. After all, we all love music don’t we?