THE Spring Season of lunchtime recitals at All Saints Church has an additional and unexpected concert on Monday, May 2.

Flautissimo is a flute orchestra based in Southampton and are visiting Penarth as part of their May Bank Holiday tour of South Wales.

As with all the lunchtime recitals at All Saints Church the concert will be held between 1pm and 2pm, entry is free and the audience is invited to bring along their own lunch with teas and coffees provided.

Flautissimo is a friendly and enthusiastic group of flute players of all ages drawn from all over Hampshire that meets weekly to rehearse exciting repertoire to a high standard for public performances. They are known as a flute orchestra as the group produces a complex and attractive sound using a full range of the members of the flute family, from the piccolo and concert flute to the less familiar alto, bass, and contrabass flutes.

Today the flute orchestra or choir numbers around 40 members and includes school pupils, university students, local teachers and amateur adults all of whom enjoy performing great music to a high standard. Flautissimo is currently under the musical direction of Joanna Price.

The orchestra rehearses and performs much music from their extensive library of challenging repertoire written for flute choir, many of which have been written specially for Flautissimo, together with excellent arrangements of other works for flute choir by their own members, together with arrangements of more familiar works from classical repertoire, folk tunes, and the movies.

In 2012 the group participated in the Adopt a Composer scheme and premiered a new work by Lithuanian composer Ruta Vitkauskaite which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Flautissimo performs a range of concerts every year in a variety of settings from their regular performance at the Southampton Art Gallery as part of the Music in the City festival in the autumn, participation by invitation in regional concert series, performing at Winchester Cathedral's Christmas Market, and a summer bandstand performance in Romsey, along with taking smaller groups to perform at open gardens, private and corporate events and the Southampton Mela.

These are interspersed with formal and informal concerts with other groups at local churches, the Turner Sims, Romsey Abbey, and elsewhere in Hampshire. As well as local performances, the group regularly perform at BFS International Conventions, and have toured to Edinburgh, Cornwall, and Dublin. They are excited to be going on tour to Wales.

Flautissimo was founded in 1984 by Robin Soldan to encourage proficient flautists in and around Southampton to gain experience in ensemble playing. The flute orchestra was the first of its kind to be run in Hampshire; the inaugural concert was on March 28 that year. The original seven students from Regent's Park School and six from St Anne's School were soon joined by many others.

Flautissimo is a partner of both the Southampton and Hampshire Music Hubs. These Hubs are networks of local and national organisations that work collaboratively to provide a range of musical activity for all children and young people in Southampton and more widely across Hampshire.