Article published in Manchester Evening News 17 June 2016

THE Glossop Festival has been going only three years but is looking more exciting and attracting bigger names to perform each year.

This time – June 20 to 25 – it’s got international bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu on the bill, as he joins a starry line-up of singers including Sarah Castle, Miriam Ryen, Rachael Lloyd, Louise Mott, Claire Surman, Eamonn Mulhall and Robert Davies, with the Glossop Festival Orchestra conducted by Christopher George, for its concluding Mozart Opera Gala concert at St James’s Church, Glossop, on the 25^th.

There’ll be extracts from Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Così Fan Tutte and The Marriage Of Figaro.

The festival begins with over 200 local primary school children playing violins and clarinets along with the Glossop Festival String Orchestra, for workshops and schools concerts with audiences of over 1,000 local children (Monday and Tuesday).

On Wednesday there’s evening chamber music at the Parish Church in Old Glossop, as the Angell Piano Trio are joined by soprano Katherine Broderick. There’s a newly commissioned piece for trio and voice by Jordan Hunt, plus Shostakovich and Brahms.

The Festival Orchestra, conducted by Christopher George, performs Shostakovich’s cello concerto no. 1, with soloist Matthew Sharp, and Beethoven’s Symphony no. 3 on Thursday evening at the Parish Church.

Friday June 24 has two events – a morning coffee concert by piano soloist Viv McLean and another evening performance by the Festival Orchestra, with Viv McLean playing Mozart’s piano concerto no. 21 (the ‘Elvira Madigan’ one) after the Don Giovanni overture, and then Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5.

The festival is run by professional musicians who live in or near Glossop, with Tom Elliott, husband of Hallé principal flute Katherine Baker, as artistic director. His assistant is opera singer and teacher Claire Surman, founder of ‘GlossOpera’.

Tom and Katherine have lived in the centre of Glossop for 11 years, having moved from Cardiff, where Kath was principal flute of the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra before taking up her post with the Hallé. They have three boys: Arthur, Henry and Felix.

Tom says: “The festival is really a lot of old friends getting together – and sharing what they do with the local audience. And there are three pubs nearby – that helps to keep the musicians happy!”

Matthew Truscott, a leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, is the Festival Orchestra leader, and conductor Christopher George is former leader of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.