Activities
The PSO's standard annual season of four Sunday-afternoon concerts at the Lady Lever Art Gallery is normally augmented by one or two outside concerts. Release from the 60-minutes-and-no-more constraint which applies at Port Sunlight makes it practical to perform complete concertos within a varied programme.
For several years the PSO was regularly engaged by the Wallasey Arts Council to give concerts at a Wallasey venue - initially All Saints Church, Hoseside Road and latterly at St. Hilary's Church, both fine venues. These concerts ended when the WAC closed in 2009. The PSO is grateful for the patronage and encouragement received from the WAC, and from the late Noel Ormrod MBE in particular. The 2009 concert was a memorable occasion: it featured Leland Chen (violin), winner of first prize in the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition and a major rising talent in the world of solo violin-playing, who played the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Niccolo Paganini.
Since 2010 the PSO has itself been promoting two outside concerts a year, one in early March at St. Hilary's Church, Wallasey, with the kind permission and support of the Rector and PCC, the other in late April at Heswall Hall, Heswall.
The PSO runs an annual Orchestral Weekend in August which gives amateur players an opportunity to grapple with relatively demanding works. The current venue is Ellesmere College, between Oswestry and Whitchurch in Shropshire. The Weekend is open to all amateur orchestral musicians (not just PSO members) and includes scope for chamber music as well as orchestral playing.
Also linked to the PSO, though independent, is the Neston Music Festival held annually since 2000 and comprising an orchestral concert and a brass band concert, both at the parish church of St. Mary and St. Helen, Neston, South Wirral. Since its inception this event has advanced in scope and standard, enjoys generous local sponsorship and has been very successful in raising funds for local charities such as the Claire House Children's Hospice.
