Having just moved to the beautiful village of Slaithwaite from London, to my surprise I noticed a concert coming up with the Slaithwaite Philharmonic at Huddersfield Town Hall with Music Director Benjamin Ellin.

I was aware of the orchestra’s existence when I visited the area to see my wife’s family, but never managed to see them perform live. This was my moment!!

The SPO, a mighty group, performed on Saturday at the beautiful and warmly welcoming acoustic of Huddersfield Town Hall, a programme that showed off all of the wonderful colours and breadth of sonority this orchestra has.

The programme began with the Berlioz overture Le Carnaval Romain; a fiery start and a tour de force for any orchestra. The north hails some of the best brass playing in

The world and my goodness was this evident in this piece. The cracker in the programme was the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4. The orchestra under the hands of its Music Director, Benjamin Ellin, really showed how tenderly they could play and also on the opposite side of the spectrum,how powerfully they could play.

The soloist, Evelyne Berezovsky, had immaculate touch and finesse in her playing, though I was a little surprised to see her playing from the score which appeared to have some fiendish page turns. The piano, a Steinway, had a very orchestral quality and blended beautifully with the timbre of the orchestra.

Evelyne Berezovsky

During the short interval, I noticed how poorly attended this concert was. I have seen flyers all around Slaithwaite and surrounding areas and I could not believe that more people hadn’t come to see this orchestra play.... I believe this concert should have been sold out! Local orchestras like these need to be kept alive and more people should attend and support this cause.

The final piece in the programme was the velvety and menacing Brahms Symphony No. 4. Unfortunately in this piece there were quite a few tuning and ensemble issues, but nevertheless, the performance had a strong impact on the audience and had a breadth of beauty rarely heard even from international orchestras. Exquisitely paced and guided to rich climaxes by Ellin, the symphony was given space to breathe, the conductor adjusting admirably to the acoustic of a hall he clearly knows well.

This orchestra definitely needs a wider audience and support. More people should know that Slaithwaite isn’t just a beautiful little village where you can get the best pork pies in the North, but it has an orchestra and musicians of very high quality and calibre and I look forward to hearing more performances from them.