A locally-born soprano who has sung internationally will return to the Harrogate district tomorrow night for a concert in Birstwith.

Eleonore Cockerham was born in Harrogate and became a chorister in Knaresborough, when she was also a finalist in the BBC Chorister of the Year competition.

Ms Cockerham, who went on to sing with the Grammy-nominated British vocal ensemble Voces8 and is now a freelance musician, will join Tim Harper, assistant director of music and organist at Ripon Cathedral and local chamber choir Voces Seraphorum at St James’ Church.

The choir presents regular concerts throughout the region and is also often invited to sing choral services at cathedrals around the country.

Their programme in Birstwith will include music by Handel, Mozart, Stanford, Dyson and Finzi and the coronation anthem ‘I was glad’ by Hubert Parry.

There will also be some choral music by more contemporary composers such as Paul Mealor and Eric Whitacre and a selection of lighter arrangements.

Tickets are £10 (£5 students) and can be booked by phoning 01423 771734 or 07808 370529. They will also be available on the door.

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Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra returns to Holy Trinity Church this month with a programme featuring music for dance, drama and romance.

Following the success of their Rachmaninov festival weekend with pianist Peter Donohoe in October, the orchestra is looking forward to a change of pace with this varied programme of chamber orchestra gems.

The first concert of the year will be held at 7.30pm on Saturday, January 28.

Conductor Xenophon Kelsey said 

“It’s pretty rare for us to do a concert without a soloist.  This is a glorious opportunity for all the players to develop the sense that, in a smaller, chamber-sized orchestra, everyone is a soloist – at least some of the time!

“We all need to listen to each other, react to musical shapes and ideas and not simply ‘follow the conductor.’ That is what makes it such a delight to conduct concerts like this and to really feel you are part of the team, not just the boss at the front.”

The concert will open with Richard Strauss’ Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments, a single-movement piece completed when the composer was just 17 years old and the first work to gain him recognition as a composer outside his native environment.

The serenade makes strong use of the French horn, having  in the ensemble line-up – perhaps evidence of his father’s musical influence (Franz Strauss was principal horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra).

Next on the programme, is Sibelius’ Pelléas and Mélisande suite, written in response to a commission by the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki as incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1892 play of the same name.

The play inhabits a medieval world of dream and fantasy and tells of Pelléas’ love for Mélisande, who is unhappily married to his brother, Golaud. The story has inspired several more musical works, including an opera by Debussy.

After the interval the orchestra will play Bartók’s energetic Romanian Folk Dances in the chamber orchestra version. Originally written for piano, and based on tunes that would have been played on violin or a shepherd’s flute, the work consist of six short movements that should according to the composer take just four minutes and three seconds to perform.

The concert concludes with Mozart’s rarely-played symphony 25. In the key of G minor, the symphony is written in the sturm und drang style, characterised by emotional extremes and sudden changes in tempo and dynamics – a piece sure to leave the audience feeling energised!

Tickets for the concert, priced at £15 for adults and free for under 18s, can be obtained online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/st-cecilia, from the Little Ripon Bookshop and on the door, or can be reserved by calling 01423 531062.