Kensington Symphony Orchestra

Head’s original concept was that this would be a repertoire orchestra, one that provided conservatoire students with the opportunity to read through pieces they might not have otherwise set eyes on before professional auditions.

The first Saturday-morning session in May 1956 was spent tackling works including Brahms’s First Symphony and Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, along with some Schumann.

However, KSO’s first appearance actually came a couple of days earlier, when Head was asked to put on a last-minute performance at Hove Town Hall in support of the Hungarian Relief Fund.

The clarinet section for the first concert consisted of Alan Hacker and Paul Harvey—both familiar names to today’s clarinettists—and a young Royal Artillery bandsman called Harrison Birtwistle.

Many are National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain alumni, people who chose not to turn professional as players, and many are employed in the music industry in other capacities.

Kensington Symphony Orchestra celebrated its 50th anniversary on 18 October 2006 with a concert at London's Barbican with a programme including Prokofiev's cantata Alexander Nevsky and Rachmaninov's piano concerto no.2 with soloist Nikolai Demidenko.

Other contemporary composers performed in recent years by the orchestra include John Adams, Thomas Adès, Richard Ayres, Charlotte Bray, Anna Clyne, Brett Dean, Seán Doherty, Helen Grime, HK Gruber, Magnus Lindberg, James McMillan, Joseph Phibbs, Joan Tower, Huw Watkins and Judith Weir.

Head’s longstanding tradition of programming unusual or neglected works by British composers has been maintained—perhaps most obviously in the premiere recording of Sir Henry Walford Davies’ once-famous cantata Everyman, made with the London Oriana Choir in 2004.

Concert performances of Puccini's operas Tosca on 14 May 2012 and La bohème on 21 May 2018 took place at St John's Smith Square, the latter with Monica McGhee as Mimí, Nico Darmanin as Rodolfo, Hazel McBain as Musetta and Nicholas Morris as Marcello.