Cuore: Conductor who once sang for King Charles in Harrogate to launch new 'world-class' orchestra for Yorkshire

“I thought we’ve got to do some sort of celebration re-opening concert (for the Royal Hall),” Dutton remembers. “I spent time trying to find funding and it unfortunately miserably failed. People either didn’t have any money or there were other causes which were much more urgent.”

He dropped the idea, but a seed for something bigger had been planted for Dutton. Now aged 30, and three years after making his professional conducting debut, he is launching a new “world-class” orchestra to showcase classical music “at the highest level in the heart of Yorkshire”.

Dutton is the founder, conductor and artistic director of Cuore Chamber Orchestra, which will perform a launch concert on the evening of May 8 at Harrogate’s Royal Hall. There’s then plans for a season of concerts between September and June, with Dutton wanting to take the orchestra to Leeds, and then to other parts of Yorkshire including Sheffield, Bradford, York and Hull.

The professional chamber orchestra, he says, will “rival” those of a high standard in the likes of London, Manchester and Edinburgh, with players joining who are already involved in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, to name a few. “We’ve now got 35 world class young professional musicians who are coming for this launch concert and hopefully will join us for all the subsequent concerts that we do,” he says.

Dutton, who was the first British conductor ever admitted to the Italian Conducting Academy in Milan, has chosen an Italian name for the orchestra, with three principal meanings – core, soul and heart. “That for me summed up exactly what the vision of this orchestra is. We want to be at the core of our communities and providing a musical service for Yorkshire. We understand that music is not about what we have, but it’s about who we are and it’s part of the fabric of our culture. And we hope that by making music of the highest quality that going to a concert can be a fresh and dynamic experience and that we can play music that speaks to people’s hearts.”

Music has spoken to Dutton’s own heart since his early years, having been born in Leeds to a GP (his mother) and a music teacher (his father). Though he was introduced to violin at the age of three by a friend of the family, and started taking lessons at four, the first main musical strand in his life was singing and that came from his dad.

“My dad didn’t have any music in the family but he went to go and sing in what was then Leeds Parish Church. I’ve asked him why and the reason was because his friend did it. There was no other reason than that. He went there and his voice was discovered and he was a fantastic boy treble and made CDs. He kept singing and then went into teaching music.”

Paul Dutton was also choirmaster at St Mark’s Church in Harrogate and (William) Dutton started singing there as a boy. His international music career began as a singer, and after winning the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year in 2006, he performed with world class soloists, orchestras, conductors and celebrities including José Carreras, Aled Jones and Ken Dodd, and made his BBC proms debut in 2007.

In 2004, Dutton’s talent as a violinist was recognised by the Kazakh virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev and in 2008 he gained a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School where he regularly performed as both a soloist and in chamber music recitals, playing in venues including the the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican and the Menuhin Hall. In 2014, he won the Strings Final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition.

Now he’s emerging as a young conductor, having made his professional debut with the Amici Ensemble at the 2022 Harrogate International Music Festival, where he also curated the rest of the season. With Cuore, he hopes to engage with seasoned concert-goers as well as new audiences who are yet to discover the world of classical music.

Dutton hopes to develop a musical education side to the orchestra too, with workshops for schoolchildren and a series of special concerts for young people. “It’s no secret that musical education has taken a hit in recent years,” he says. “We’re looking at either going into schools and doing workshops with the orchestra or bringing thousands of school children to places like the Royal Hall, Leeds Town Hall or Huddersfield Town Hall and making a new special concert for them, to get them exposed to wonderful orchestral music.”

Important to him is celebrating Yorkshire. That includes featuring musicians from Yorkshire or those who already play in orchestras in the region, but it also includes showcasing Yorkshire businesses. He is working with bespoke tailors Carl Stuart, for example, on his conducting suit, whilst his podium is being made by a local carpenter, and a VIP reception after the concert will include wine from Dunesforde vineyard. “I’d love to look at other Yorkshire products that we can bring into the concert experience as well, whether that’s a food or drink offering or celebrating art by Yorkshire artists,” he says.

Dutton believes classical music needs “a bit of a fresh kick”. “Apart from the music, you can pretty much change everything else,” he says. The vision for him is to move away from traditional tailcoat outfits, introduce new concert features such as speech and theatre, and make the most of innovative formats with flexible lengths and programming and unique venues.

“I really hope that we can open up orchestral music to a new audience, one that unfortunately at the moment is not coming to classical music or orchestral concerts,” Dutton says. Only last month, he got talking to a local physics teacher who said for a long time he’d wanted to experience classical music but had felt “daunted”. “His name was Adrian. And I just think how many other Adrians are there out there?” Dutton says. “We’ve got to open that door to people.”

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