About Us
​Founded by Wiktor Wysocki officially on the 16th of January 2023, it had its start in September as a smaller ensemble of eight people, made up of a guitar, bass trombone and winds. It has now grown to over 48 members, with plans for further growth in the near future.
The RRO is a newly formed orchestra, consisting of mostly current RBC students, and run entirely by RBC students, with support from staff and tutors.
Its focus is on romantic repertoire, alongside new and contemporary tonal compositions and is intended to be, in part, a platform for composers to express their emotions in a colorfully tonal and refreshing way.
The RRO was founded with a purpose in mind: to revive romantic music in the wider classical genre, in a relevant and modern style hence, Romantic-Revival. It isn't about eliminating the experimental, atonal or similar works, but rather about giving new, romantic music a voice alongside that. Accessible music for all, brought to you by the young musicians of tomorrow. The orchestra is conducted by Leo Jaffrey
About the Romantic-Revival Movement
“The Romantic revival in serious music arose in the 1960s after decades of relatively conservative and traditional offerings by the world’s concert presenting organizations and record companies. After World War II there was an over-emphasis on the canon of standard “great masterpieces”, co-existing with disdain for any music that was perceived as not profound in intent. The gray and uninteresting scope of music at the time was complemented by attempts to have contemporary twelve-tone music accepted into the mainstream. Similarly, there was a widespread and profound change in the way music was taught, with the traditional conservatory bar-by-bar reading of the text (score) replacing the earlier centuries’ interest in spontaneity, imagination and personality in performance.
This revitalization of the musical scene was brought about by a number of musicians who had been trained in the old style, and a smaller number of musicologists and music company executives who were interested in viable compositions that had been
excluded from the canon, as well as more flexible and expressive ways of performing. The subject was one of the favorites of Harold C. Schonberg, then music critic of the New York Times. Schonberg credited Frank Cooper and his Festival of Neglected Romantic Music with jump starting the revival. In the 1970s, through reviews in Records & Recording, Ates Orga championed the movement in Britain, leading later to his 1994 Virtuoso Romantics series with Marc-André Hamelin at the Wigmore Hall. Now in the beginning of the 21st century, because of those efforts, the repertoires of orchestras, string quartets, opera houses, ballet troupes and solo instrumentalists are far more likely to contain a wide variety of music from all periods, including 19th century works by composers other than Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, that had been previously excluded before the revival.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_Revival
The predominant difference between this movement and the goal of the RRO is to champion new romantic music alongside the well-known and obscure works of previous generations of composers. The RRO is intended to be a platform for composers to express their emotions in a colorfully tonal and refreshing way, in an overly grey and monotonous world. It isn't about eliminating the experimental, atonal or similar works, but rather about giving new, romantic music a voice alongside that. Accessible music for all.
New Zealand born conductor Leo Jaffrey began his musical career as a baritone saxophonist in a trad-style Swing Band. Moving on to the Tenor, and then to Alto, his fascination with music grew in a classical direction, leading him to study composition with aspirations to become a film composer. After scoring two short films and completing his degree in composition, conducting became his full-time focus and he quickly finished two postgraduate conducting courses, one at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the later at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Alongside his ongoing work with a variety of school and community-based ensembles, he has worked with several professional groups including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Orchestra of the Swan, and the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir. He has learnt from, and assisted conductors such as Dr. Karen Grylls, Daniele Rosina, Michael Seal, Hamish McKeich, Gemma New, James Judd, Dr. Kevin Cameron, and Tecwyn Evans.
Augmenting his freelance conducting, Leo is also currently working on two commissions as well as a chamber opera, and some commissioned arrangements. He regularly appears as a chorister at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and has a position as a lay clerk at the St Chad's Cathedral. When not waving his arms or singing in church, Leo is an avid hiker and enjoys 'getting out into the bush to see some nature'.