About us - watch and listen

We are a successful non-professional orchestra in north London with Music Director Christopher Stark. We give four or five high standard concerts a year and are constantly looking for new challenges. Recent seasons have included large-scale pieces such as Nielsen's Symphony No. 2, Copland's Appalachian Spring and the rediscovered Symphony in B minor by Kashperova alongside music by Beethoven, Schumann and Sibelius. Regular concerts with Finchley Chamber Choir have included Brahms' German Requiem and Stravinsky’s Mass.

We work with fine young soloists many of whom, including Tasmin Little and Valeriy Sokolov, have attained international status. We also work with young composers and have given first performances of pieces by Richard Bullen and our own Sam Thackray. Most of our concerts are in Finchley and we have performed at the Hampstead Garden Suburb music festival and St John’s Smith Square. In 2018 we made our first visit to St James's Piccadilly - see the talented Asagi Nakata playing Tchaikowsky's first piano concerto: FSO at St James's

We rehearse weekly. We work hard but like to remain friendly. For new members there is no membership fee in your first term with us.

Find out more

We have produced these videos to help recruit talented new players

1 Powerful moments from Symphony No.9 by Shostakovich

2 Meet conductor Christopher and leader Stephen

3 Meet string players Evie and Pauline in Shostakovich and the violin concerto by Florence Price

4 Meet our wind players Miriam and Ann in Fauré’s Pavane

5 Cake and break - see what we get up to in our tea break

6 A new piece by Sam our trumpet player

Excerpts from some of our concerts.

Listen to us in concert. These excerpts are from a few years ago; we have not been able recently to make concert recordings in good quality sound.

• Beethoven 'Eroica' Symphony, 3rd movement (2016):

• Borodin Symphony No.2, end of 1st movement (2018):

• Tchaikovsky Capriccio Italien - conclusion (2018)

• Enigma variations 10 & 11 (2019)

The voice of Tom Hammond

Back in the first Covid lockdown Tom Hammond, our previous Music Director who died tragically young, recorded two fascinating podcasts. To hear his thoughts on conducting and how he became a conductor click on these links:

part 1a :::: part 1b :::: part 2 :::: part 3