Strata Orchestra: The Excavation Begins

On Monday 15 June, Strata Orchestra played its founding concert at Hallé St. Peter’s, Manchester. The room was full. The music was everything we hoped it would be.

Conductor Euan Shields founded Strata with a specific idea in mind. Classical music is sediment. Century upon century of composition, influence, and reinvention, all layered on top of each other. Performing it well means digging. Going past the surface of a score and excavating what’s actually buried there, the original tension, the historical context, the human story underneath the notation. Monday night was the first proof of that vision in a room with an audience.

For the founding concert, Shields chose Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, arranged by Klaus Simon for chamber ensemble. Mahler 5 is vast in scope and emotionally complex, one of the great works in the orchestral canon. Simon’s arrangement strips the orchestration back without losing the weight of the piece. In the intimate setting of St. Peter’s, that translated into something you could feel physically. The ensemble didn’t hide behind the scale of the original. They took it apart and rebuilt it in front of you.

The players are Hallé Youth Orchestra alumni and current Hallé Orchestra members. People rooted in Manchester’s musical community, some who grew up through it, others still at the centre of it. On the night, that shared history showed.

Monday 15 June 2026, 19:30 Hallé St. Peter’s, Manchester