Lev Parikian
One-Day Course

Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 Conducting workshop

9 November 2025

The Grey Coat Hospital School,
Greycoat Place,
London
SW1P 2DY

Cost
  • Non student
    £39
  • Student
    £25

Join us for a rehearsal workshop with four conductors from the Royal College of Music’s postgraduate course in orchestral conducting, nominated by Toby Purser, the RCM’s Head of Conducting, each working on a movement of Shostakovich’s fifth symphony, under the supervision of our Artistic Director, Levon Parikian.

Applications are invited for all sections of the orchestra from players at Grade 8-plus, or equivalent.

The nearest stations to the Grey Hospital School are Victoria, St James’s Park and Pimlico. There is free parking in the surrounding streets on Sundays.

Please note that while the hall is in the central London congestion charge zone (fee £15, payable online), it only operates on Sundays only if you’re driving through the zone between 12.00 and 18.00, which should mean players are not affected.

(The London Ultra Low Emission Zone applies all day, every day. Check here to see if your vehicle is affected.)

Repertoire:

Symphony No. 5

Shostakovich

Conductor:

Wooju Baik

Yi-Chuan Chen

Benjamin Draper

Giuseppe Stillitano

Schedule

10.30-13.30

14.30-17.15

Open Rehearsal

17.45-18.45

All course fees are subsidised by our fundraising activities and fees are further reduced for students. Some bursary funding is available: please enquire when applying for courses. In addition to the general full and part bursaries we offer, we have two specific bursary schemes:

  • Co-Principal Strings Student Bursary scheme

    If you are currently studying full-time at a UK conservatoire and would appreciate the opportunity to work intensively on large-scale symphonic repertoire with professional conductors, without the pressure of public performance, at the same time as benefiting directly from the experience of our professional string principals, why not apply for the Co-Principal Strings Student bursary scheme? Successful applicants will be offered a bursary-funded place on one of our London weekend courses as co-principal first or second violin, viola, cello or double bass. A modest contribution to travel costs is available to participants studying outside London.

  • Play ON bursary programme

    Our newest bursary programme, Play ON, initiated in 2022 by a grant from the Victoria Wood Foundation, enables us to offer a number of bursary-funded places on London weekend courses to current conservatoire students and recent graduates across all sections of the orchestra, particularly those who studied and/or graduated during the Covid pandemic. A contribution to travel costs is available to all participants.

To apply for these schemes, please email admin@rehearsal-orchestra.org with your CV.