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Classical Preview: Fresh ideas give festival an even broader appeal
Over the past decade the Harrogate International Festival has broadened its horizons to bring a public appeal to the feast of classical music, this year's being staged earlier to coincide with the tourist period.
There's plenty to please traditional audiences, not least a concert given by the celebrated Berlin Symphony.
They bring with them an all-Beethoven night that ends with the Pastoral Symphony, an ideal work for their elegant style, and the Emperor Piano Concerto with Derek Han as soloist (July 24).
The festival opens tonight with the UK's best-known and most charismatic soprano, Lesley Garrett, a star of the world's operatic stage who still likes to be known as a Yorkshire lass. She sings a varied programme that takes in opera to West End musicals.
A chamber group drawn from London's Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields offers a rare chance to hear works written when their composer was young, and includes a vivacious Octet from the 16-year-old Mendelssohn, together with Dvorak's String Sextet and Shostakovich's Prelude and Scherzo (Jul 14).
The annual Young Musicians Series contains four morning events opening with the all-female Finzi Quartet, one of the deluge of outstanding string quartets this country has produced. They play a challenging programme of works by Mozart, Britten and Mendelssohn (July 16).
Crossover pianist, Joanna MacGregor, offers a recital from Bach to Piazzolla, and ends with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (Jul 22); the Black Dyke Band mix serious and popular classics (Jul 19), and the Sofia Orthodox Choir sings a wide range of sacred and secular music (Jul 16).
Harrogate Festival, July 10 to 24, 0845 1308840.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 8 C to 21 C
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