IF THIS weather continues, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine yourself in an Alpine setting.

But were your imagination to need a nudge then the musicians of Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra are just the ones for the job.

The orchestra will be back at Huddersfield Town Hall next weekend with a rare performance of Richard Strauss’ epic work for symphony orchestra Alpine Symphony.

Mountains and Melody continues an exciting concert programme from the orchestra under the baton of conductor . Benjamin Ellin.

“The concert will offer a vision of the vast and monumental phenomena that are the Alps,” he said.

“Alpine Symphony is not only a huge work for huge forces but also a piece with some incredible intimacy and delicacy.

“Written at a time of global change (it was completed in 1915), it perhaps asks us to remember a little humility whilst being in awe of some of the natural world’s most dramatic statements.”

The Strauss work is not really a symphony but a tone poem which depicts the experience of an entire day spent climbing an Alpine Mountain. It presents a considerable challenge for any orchestra demanding very large forces.

“Perhaps we should have booked an entire brass band to help out,” says orchestra secretary Chris Woodhead.

“The brass players alone will include 20 French horns, six trumpets, six trombones and two tubas.

“On top of this we need an army of percussion instruments including wind machine and thunder machine.”

Listen out for the off stage brass section setting the scene of the Alpine landscape.

The melody of Mozart opens the concert with a complete contrast to the Strauss in a performance of the popular 5th violin concerto in A major.

The soloist in this concert opener will be the talented young Russian born violinist Artem Kotov.

Artem was born in Ekaterinburg in 1983 and was six when he started to play the violin at the Ekaterinburg Academy of Music.

When he was nine, he performed the Bach E major violin concerto with the academy orchestra.

Artem followed that with several successful performances at the Ekaterinburg Philharmonic Hall and at the Opera Theater. At the music festival, organised by UNESCO, Artem was awarded the Scholarship of Russian Ministry of Culture.

Artem was 10 when he won the first prize at the Jeunesses Musicales competition in Bucharest and went on to pick up major prizes in Italy and Germany.

Three years ago, Artem became laureate of the 5th Uralsk International Violin Competition in Kazakhstan and won the Bach Competition for Strings in London.

This exceptional young musician has toured Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy.

He has also toured South and Central America and stopped off to give a masterclass at the Cuban Institute of Music in Havana.

Artem’s repertoire includes the Six Sonatas and Partitas by Bach, Six Sonatas by Ysaye, and 10 violin sonatas by Beethoven.

For the last four years, he has been artistic director of the Primavera Classica international music festival, which has had big success at Moscow’s best concert halls, featuring some of the finest artists of the younger generation.

Artem has studied with Igor Frolov at the Moscow State Conservatory and is currently studying at Trinity College of Music in London with Mayumi Fujikawa.

He is a Golubovich Scholar and plays an astonishing violin by Ceruti, 1744, which was loaned to him from Trinity College of Music.

The concert on January 16 starts at 7.30pm and the orchestra’s conductor Benjamin Ellin will lead a pre-concert discussion at 6.30pm.

Tickets £9.50 to £14.50 (concessions £7.00) are available from the Information Centre tel 01484 223200, or on the door. As is usual with the orchestra’s concerts, children accompanied by adults are admitted free.