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Concerts

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This is every performance of Coke's music that has so far been traced, from his schooldays at Eton in 1929 to the present, assembled from printed programmes, press notices, Radio Times billings, his mother's household accounts and the composer's own annotations. It is not a complete record and it cannot be: he was played most often in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, sometimes in a converted stable at his own house, and much of that went unreported. There is a gap of twenty-five years between 1987 and 2012 in which exactly one performance has been found. If you know of a concert that is missing, or have a programme, a cutting or a memory of hearing this music, please do get in touch.

1942

Concert

18th SeptemberBuxton Pavilion Gardens

Performers
Norina Semino (cello) Roger Sacheverell Coke (piano) Buxton Orchestra Kenneth Kelly (conductor)
Programme
Coke
Poem for cello, piano and small orchestra, Op. 36
Notes
The cellist's name was recorded here as 'Nagina (?) Semins' until September 2026. Two documents in Coke's own collection give it as Norina Semino, and the parts folder names the conductor, Kenneth Kelly, who was not recorded at all. The same folder gives the forces: fourteen string parts, four first violins, four seconds, two violas, two cellos and two basses, with seven wind and brass besides.
Source
Coke's annotation on the autograph full score of the Poem op. 36 — Coke0793 The parts folder for the Poem — Coke0797 Front page of the first violin part, Derbyshire Record Office
Provenance
Simon Callaghan's score collection; Derbyshire Record Office

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