History of Cowley Orchestra
In about 1948 Henry F Gosling, a violin teacher, moved from Ilford to Oxford, bringing with him many orchestral scores and, more importantly, the full parts of all kinds of music.
Henry F Gosling was not only a violin teacher, but had also been the conductor of the Oberon Orchestra founded in 1901. Very wisely, obviously knowing how music disappears, he put his stamp on each of them and his copy of WEBER.'s Oberon Overture has not only his usual stamp but also his business card glued onto the fly-leaf. We are not sure how old this music for the Oberon Overture is - probably Over a 100 years old. The oldest pieces of music we have inherited from Mr Gosling are the parts for Haydn's La Chasse Symphony, printed by an English printer in the very early 1800's maybe while Haydn was in London.
Once in Oxford Mr Gosling set up the Oberon Orchestra again, a lot of the players coming from Oxford University Press. This Orchestra gradually changed and metamorphosed through different names and styles, adding all sorts of music to its library as it went but always using the valuable core provided by Mr Gosling. We now have the scores of many classical works, together with some more valuable pieces of popular music of the shows, cinema and radio from before 1900 to about 1970.
The orchestra has moved around a lot over the years, and a few of our members have been in the orchestra whilst it moved from Cowley Community Centre, through a few locations to it's present location at what was called 'Peers School' but is now recreated as 'The Oxford Academy'. For the last 20 years the orchestra has become known as Cowley Orchestra or just Cowley, (as in "see you at Cowley on Wednesday then".)
Henry F Gosling was not only a violin teacher, but had also been the conductor of the Oberon Orchestra founded in 1901. Very wisely, obviously knowing how music disappears, he put his stamp on each of them and his copy of WEBER.'s Oberon Overture has not only his usual stamp but also his business card glued onto the fly-leaf. We are not sure how old this music for the Oberon Overture is - probably Over a 100 years old. The oldest pieces of music we have inherited from Mr Gosling are the parts for Haydn's La Chasse Symphony, printed by an English printer in the very early 1800's maybe while Haydn was in London.
Once in Oxford Mr Gosling set up the Oberon Orchestra again, a lot of the players coming from Oxford University Press. This Orchestra gradually changed and metamorphosed through different names and styles, adding all sorts of music to its library as it went but always using the valuable core provided by Mr Gosling. We now have the scores of many classical works, together with some more valuable pieces of popular music of the shows, cinema and radio from before 1900 to about 1970.
The orchestra has moved around a lot over the years, and a few of our members have been in the orchestra whilst it moved from Cowley Community Centre, through a few locations to it's present location at what was called 'Peers School' but is now recreated as 'The Oxford Academy'. For the last 20 years the orchestra has become known as Cowley Orchestra or just Cowley, (as in "see you at Cowley on Wednesday then".)