Looking ahead to a thrilling summer of debuts, premieres and world class music in Harrogate Music Festival

Classical music fans are in for a treat when renowned Chineke! Orchestra performs at the Grand Opening Concert at this year’s Harrogate Music Festival on June 29 at 7.30pm.

The orchestra, founded by acclaimed double bass player Chi-chi Nwanoku, is the flagship ensemble of the Chineke! Foundation, set up to support, inspire and encourage black and ethnically diverse classical musicians in the UK and Europe, and will visit Harrogate ahead of their performance at the BBC Proms in September.

Nwanoku says audiences in Harrogate will experience some “wonderful playing and dazzling music” when Chineke! come to town.

The first half of the concert will focus on composers who started at the Royal College of Music on the same day – Holst, Coleridge-Taylor and Vaughan Williams.

“This is one of the first times in history that their music has been put together on the same platform,” she says.

"I feel it’s really important for the nation to see those three composers side by side.”

The second half features Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, a composer who Nwanoku believes is the greatest symphonist of the classical era.

“He teaches us everything we need to know about symphonic music making.

"He really is the beacon for us to study.”

Nwanoku is a renowned double bass player who has performed with some of the world’s best orchestras and ensembles during her career. Yet she often found she was the only black musician.

“I just thought it’s the 21st century, it shouldn’t be a novelty that more than one person of colour is on the stage,” she says.

“I wanted to shine a spotlight on all those musicians of colour that we don’t normally see”.

Chineke! is the first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra in Europe and since its creation in 2015 has performed in front of packed audiences, including the BBC Proms, the Lucerne Festival and the Lincoln Center in New York.

The orchestra continues to inspire both audiences and musicians as it makes its Harrogate debut.

ARGENTINE TANGO COMES TO HARROGATE

Julian Rowlands’ bandoneon has taken him from TV and recording studios, to the West End stage, concert halls, theatres and opera houses.

Now he is set to bring the Argentine Tango to Harrogate.

A free reed instrument developed in Germany and exported to South America between 1911 and 1939, the bandoneon is the defining sound of Argentine tango and the instrument of composer and musician Astor Piazzolla.

Rowlands is best known for playing Piazzolla, and Harrogate audiences should expect to hear some of the Argentine composer’s most deeply moving music.

“We will be playing the Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas – the four seasons of Buenos Aires” says Rowlands.

“These pieces are a bit like Vivaldi's Four Seasons,but depict the psychic landscape of the city, its denizens and its dances, rather than the bucolic adventures of the baroque model.

“Interspersed with these seasons, we will play four of his most passionate and moving works: Oblivion, Chiquilín de Bachín, Milonga del Ángel and Adios Nonino”.

Julian Rowlands will play Tango by Piazzolla at The Crown Hotel on Friday, July 7 at 3pm.

He will also perform at Sunday Brunch, Dowland Plus on Sunday, July 9 at 11am as part of the Musicians in Residence Weekend.

BIG BRASS AND FEELGOOD MUSIC

Mike Lovatt has performed with everyone from Shirley Bassey and Robbie Williams to Tony Bennett and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, during an impressive career stretching early 40 years.

However, the virtuoso trumpeter reckons this will all be topped when he brings his new music supergroup – Mike Lovatt’s Brass Pack – to play its live premiere at the Harrogate Music Festival on July 14.

“We’ve got some of the best players in the world who I’ve handpicked to play in this ensemble” says Lovatt.

Brass Pack was inspired by the iconic 1958 album, Big Fat Brass, featuring music arranged and composed by Billy May, the acclaimed American trumpeter and composer who wrote arrangements for the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.

“What I really loved was the sound and the fact it didn’t have saxophones and had French horns in their place, which you wouldn’t normally have in a big band.” says Lovatt.

What started out as a lockdown video project involving a number of Lovatt’s musician friends and contacts has evolved into a big band featuring exciting new arrangements by Colin Skinner.

The band itself features French horns along with piano, guitar, bass, drums, tuned percussion, harp, and tubas.

Over the years Lovatt has worked with some of the world’s best orchestras and performed at the Royal Variety Show and the BBC Proms.

He’s also been a session musician on five of the James Bond films, including playing principal trumpet on the last Daniel Craig film, No Time To Die, and toured with the late Jessye Norman, one of the world’s great opera singers.

Now he’s excited about bringing Brass Pack to Harrogate, where they will be joined by vocalist Matt Ford.

“We’re doing reimaginings of classic songs like You Make Me Feel So Young, My Way, or I’ve Got You Under My Skin, that people know and love.

"The audience is going to hear those but they’re going to be treated in a completely new way but, still, with a flavour of those 50s’ arrangements.

Book online at harrogateinternationalfestivals.com or call the box office on 01423 562303