Whilst being the Associate Composer for the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra Klassika between 2003 and 2009, I was called upon to compose music that was appropriate both to an audience completely uninformed in the latest contemporary music, as well as to an orchestra untutored in performing much contemporary music outside Prokofiev and other Soviet era composers. I was forced therefore to write music that creatively employed my own musical language but written in a way that was approachable both by that particular audience and orchestra. This gave me the opportunity to explore outdated forms like the symphony, and have some fun moulding it in my own ways. As such, these 'symphonies' take on the character more of the early Haydn divertimenti, precursors to the symphony, in that they are basically light-hearted and designed mostly just to entertain the crowd. This 7th Symphony was actually composed to complement Haydn's Symphony no 45 in F sharp minor, called the 'Farewell", and the performers slowly file onto the stage until, in the last section, the full orchestra is playing. This mirrors the Haydn, in which the performers slowly leave the stage during the last movement. This is the study score of a slightly revised version of the symphony than the one performed in St Petersburg, extracts of which perfomance can be heard in the attached mp3 file.