How many players are there in the orchestra?
The SSO has around 60 regular members but we may augment our numbers with guest players to meet the requirements of larger scale works. Different pieces require different orchestral forces, so in any one concert the number of players and which instruments are on stage is a direct result of the composer’s requirements. For example, a work by Richard Strauss will typically have been written for a very large orchestra (we had 115 musicians on stage when we performed his Alpine Symphony in the Ulster Hall), whereas a typical Mozart symphony may only require around 30 – 40 players.
