Surrey Mozart Players

Welcome to the website of the Surrey Mozart Players. We are a chamber orchestra with a reputation for imaginative, exciting and entertaining programmes, featuring repertoire from Baroque and Classical, to modern masterpieces, and including premiers of newly-commissioned works. We perform five concerts a year in and around Guildford, Surrey.

For our full season programme, please visit our 2025-2026 Concerts page.

Our Next Concert

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Adults: £21
21 & under: £5

Menuhin Hall Online
By Phone - call the Box Office on 01932 559 400 (10am-3pm weekdays, lunch 12.15- 12.45pm)
On the door - until sold out

The Conductor

Philip Ellis
www.philipellisconductor.com

This concert will be conducted by Philip Ellis who was appointed as Music Director of the Surrey Mozart Players in March 2023.

Since winning first prize in the Leeds Conductors’ Competition in 1991, Philip Ellis has worked extensively throughout the UK conducting many concerts with the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Concert Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, London Mozart Players, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, City of London Sinfonia, Northern Sinfonia and over 400 concerts with English Sinfonia. He is a passionate supporter of Music Education and has worked extensively with amateur orchestras, youth and community groups throughout his career.

He made his international debut conducting the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 1987, leading to engagements with Hong Kong Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Symphony, Belgian National Orchestra, Flanders Symphony, St Petersburg Philharmonic, St Petersburg Symphony, National Orchestra of Mexico, Western Australian Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Würtembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Neue Philharmonie Westfallen and many broadcast concerts with the BRTN Philharmonic (Brussels) for radio and television.

Philip Ellis works extensively as a conductor for dance. As conductor for Birmingham Royal Ballet 1989-2025, he conducted the majority of their productions. He regularly guest conducts for international ballet companies: The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, La Scala Ballet in Milan, Paris Opera Ballet at the Opera Garnier, The Australian Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Mikhailovsky Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Hong Kong Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Rome Opera Ballet, Korean National Ballet and Gothenburg Ballet.

On CD, he has recorded Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals with the Philharmonia. Copland Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, El Salon Mexico and a series of Concert Classics discs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Contemporary Clarinet Concertos for Nimbus with Emma Johnson and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with Dimitri Ferschtman, recorded live in concert from the Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam.

In his free time he is a keen artist, particularly interested in portraiture, working in a wide range media. A selection of his work can be seen on his website www.philipellisconductor.com and on instagram @philellisart.

The Soloists

Surrey Mozart Players showcase two hugely talented pupil soloists from the Menuhin School playing pieces including Prokofiev’s haunting and deeply felt G minor Violin Concerto.

The Music

Paris Symphony No. 31 - Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 2 - Prokofiev, Silent Woods - Dvořák, Symphony No. 1 - Mendelssohn.

Prokofiev’s haunting and deeply felt G minor Violin Concerto plays alongside two great symphonies from composers marking their own graduation to maturity: Mozart’s magnificent Symphony No. 31, ostensibly written to show off the strengths of the huge and fabulously hyped Paris Orchestra — it actually shows a composer able to tailor a work that intentionally provokes great excitement in his foreign audience. An audience that duly erupted into appreciative cheering at the precise moments predicted by Mozart.

Mendelssohn’s joyful Symphony No. 1 (already his 13th essay in the form) is a phenomenal work by any standards, but from a 15-year-old! Six years later Mendelssohn still felt proud enough of this teenage work to include it in his Philharmonic Society showcase in London, but here he also incorporated an arrangement of the Scherzo of his even earlier Octet into the symphony.