Classical Preview: Feast and bargains in store for Town Hall concert season

Leeds Town Hall offers, year on year, a range of orchestras, conductors and soloists that is matched by no other concert venue in the UK, and if you hurry you can enjoy the annual summer discounts for next season.
By The Newsroom
Published 13th Aug 2010, 12:40 BST
Updated 13th Aug 2010, 12:41 BST

Creating your own package deal for as few as five concerts, or choose the whole season, you could find yourself earning as many as five free concerts from the heavy discounts available.

And what a feast there is in store, with no fewer than 17 orchestras taking part in the 20 concerts, four coming from abroad and including the celebrated Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra.

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Opening on the first Saturday in October comes a welcome return of the Philharmonia Orchestra with their charismatic conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Including music by Sibelius and Beethoven the programme ends a virtuoso suite from Prokoviev's ballet, Romeo and Juliet.

You will be able to take a journey into space with the latest hi-definition planetary images from NASA, when the outstanding Houston Symphony arriving to perform Holst's The Planets (October 9).

Yet with such high-profile ensembles as the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio and the famed Vienna Tonkunstler Orchestra, we must not forget that with the Orchestra of Opera North on hand, Leeds already has in residence an ensemble that ranks among Europe's finest.

They usually serve up an orchestral blockbuster, and with Jac Van Steen at the helm, this season they offer Mahler's epic Seventh Symphony.

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But the concert you must not miss comes from the Orchestre National d'Ile de France, who will breath vibrancy into Ravel's Suites from Daphnis and Chloe in a way that is restricted to Gallic musicians.

Leeds International Orchestral Season, 0113 224 3801.

Related topics:Town Hall