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Review: Symbiosis, Bristol Beacon – ‘A tour de force of catharsis, healing and affirmation’
“It’s okay to feel anger, rage, or helplessness” — that was one of the key messages burning like a bright neon light from the opening night of the Bristol leg of the BBC Proms.
The city’s own award-winning Paraorchestra returned to Bristol Beacon alongside the trailblazing, genre-defying Manchester duo the Breath for a night of music that felt both urgent and transcendent.
Paraorchestra founder and conductor Charles Hazlewood gave a downbeat and sparked a jolt of electricity that ignited an 80-minute musical odyssey with no interval. The audience was swept into the world premiere of Symbiosis, a daring collaboration between the Breath and the orchestra, shaped and expanded by the brilliant orchestrations of composer Oliver Vibrans.
The Breath — guitarist Stuart McCallum and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ríoghnach Connolly — have built a devoted following with their fearless blending of styles. Their music is storytelling at its most vivid: reflective, searching and soul-piercing.
Although the world premiere of Symbiosis was unveiled in Bristol, its prelude began in Manchester where Hazlewood first encountered them and was spellbound. When he later asked if Vibrans could come into their “home” and “build some extensions”, McCallum’s answer was simple: “Oliver is always welcome to our home.”
The opening night of the Bristol leg of the BBC Proms featured Paraorchestra and the Breath – photo: Milan Perera
The result was a tour de force that left the Beacon Hall audience entranced. McCallum’s kaleidoscopic textures from a range of guitars, including a baritone, provided a rich sonic canvas for the proceedings. Connolly, moving seamlessly between flute, shruti and her spectacular vocals, held the audience in her palm throughout.
The evening opened with All That You Have Been, its insistent fiddle lines transformed into a musical phrase of rare beauty when Connolly’s vocals joined in, lifting the music into an ethereal space.
It then neatly segued into Harvest, a piece that evoked nostalgia and introspection, painting a vivid vocal portrait of Conolly’s native Ireland — a land that holds its secrets close, revealing them only in measured, deliberate moments.
Paraorchestra played under the direction of its founder Charles Hazlewood – photo: Eljay Briss
Paraorchestra, winners of the Best Ensemble Award at the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Awards — often dubbed the “BAFTAs of classical music” — lived up to their reputation as world-class music makers, providing the perfect complement to the Breath’s sound.
Hazlewood, a musician extraordinaire, combines metronomic precision of his downbeats with a near-evangelical zeal for sharing music with the masses, all without ever appearing didactic: a refreshing departure from the stereotypical buttoned-up, autocratic conductors of the past like Toscanini or Herbert von Karajan.
Hazlewood led the orchestra through a contrasting set that featured rich and varied textures, from bagpipes to tannoy speakers, each element enhancing the magic of the performance.
The 12-song set consisted of haunting melodies such as Cliona’s Wave which evoked the pre-Christian past of Ireland, replete with myths and legends, which is buried under the sands of time but slowly unveiled by Conolly’s piercing vocals.
Her voice rose up like a supplication of an ancient priestess of her emerald land, her golden stream of vocals as healing and luxuriating as midsummer’s sun filling the cathedral-like space of the Hall.
Connolly (pictured), moving seamlessly between flute, shruti and her spectacular vocals, had the audience captivated – photo: Eljay Briss
The programme was not solely steeped in melancholia and nostalgia. Some pieces, like Antwerp, explored themes of colonialism and cultural displacement, offering glimpses not just of Belgian colonial history but of the wider patterns of exploitation and dominion that scarred many parts of the world, and that are still happening today.
Too Many Have Gone, the penultimate piece of the night, was introspective and reflective without ever tipping into kitsch, offering a quiet moment of contemplation.
The set was bookended by the curiously titled Chilli Salt, a piece brimming with kick and flair, which brought the performance to a thrilling end.
The thoroughly-entertained audience responded with rapturous applause for Paraorchestra, the Breath and composer Oliver Vibrans, marking a triumphant start to the Bristol leg of the BBC Proms.
The world premiere of Symbiosis proved triumphant – photo: Eljay Briss
Main photo: Eljay Briss
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