A spirited and varied programme from St Gregory's Orchestra proves just the ticket for Christopher Smith.

St Gregory's Orchestra under Martin Wyatt opened its Sunday evening concert at the Maddermarket Theatre with a spirited account of Rossini's overture to An Italian Girl in Algiers, and Dvorak's Czech Suite was full of bustling energy. Berlioz's orchestration of Schubert's Erl King was a fascinating rarity.

Next came the premiere of Poem for Prospero by the distinguished Norfolk composer Kenneth Ian Hÿtch. Playing an instrument made by her husband, the cellist Charlotte Watson took the challenging and passionate solo, and the theme of searching for freedom came across powerfully in this atmospheric orchestral tone-poem.

The programme concluded with the first Norwich performance of the three-movement Symphony in G Minor by Peter Creswell, a former soldier now settled in Suffolk. The audience enjoyed the vigorous rhythms of his approachable and colourful score with its variations on a well-known carol and its echoes of a military life.