IT IS astonishing to think that Huddersfield Music Society has been staging concerts in the town for nearly a century.
The society was founded in 1918 by noted musician Arthur Eaglefield Hull and has been bringing top quality musicians to Huddersfield ever since.
The society’s new season, its 96th, begins early next month and runs through until April of next year. All the concerts are in St Paul’s Hall in Huddersfield on Monday evenings.
The Music Society has never been shy of programming powerful work and eminent performers. Little wonder that it inspires such loyalty in its audience and is looking forward to achieving its centenary series in four years time.
The society opens its season on October 7 with the Rose Consort of Viols, Clare Wilkinson (mezzo-soprano) and Jacob Heringman (lute).
The Rose Consort is an English ensemble of viol players who perform mainly early consort music, including works by Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland, and Henry Purcell.
The Consort musicians include Prof John Bryan, of the University of Huddersfield.
On November 4, the Gould Piano Trio make a return visit, with music by Mozart, Ives and Schubert.
The trio, which marked its 20th anniversary in the 2011-12 season, has an enviable reputation for musical integrity and imagination.
The December 2 concert features a string sextet, members of the Erringden Ensemble.
The ensemble is a group of musicians founded four years ago by cellist Helen Thatcher and viola player David Aspin.
They named it after Erringden, an area close to Hebden Bridge where the founder members live and the inaugural concert took place.
The sextet will play Tchaikovsky, Strauss and Brahms.
There will be a warm welcome in the New Year for the fine clarinetist Michael Collins.
At 16 Michael won the woodwind prize in the first BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition and at 22 made his American debut at Carnegie Hall in New York.
Michael will be at St Paul’s Hall on January 13 playing Brahms, Weber, Bernstein, Lutoslawski, Muczyski and Horovitz, accompanied by Michael McHale on piano.
In February the Music Society welcomes the talented violinist Martyn Jackson.
Huddersfield audiences have already been lucky enough to hear the talents of this fast-rising young musician on a number of occasions.
Martyn has appeared as a guest soloist with both Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra and Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra.
For this Music Society concert he will be accompanied by Alison Rhind, playing Beethoven (Kreutzer), Elgar and Wieniawski.
On March 3, the concert will be played by the young Russian pianist Yevgeny Subdin.
He will play Scarlatti sonatas, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Chopin and his own arrangement of Mozart, and his own paraphrase of Chopin’s Minute Waltz.
The final concert of the season is by the Benyounes String Quartet on April 14. They are a young dynamic British string Quartet, who will be playing Haydn, Ravel and Mendelssohn.
Quite a season ahead then. For more details, go to the society’s website, www.huddersfield-music-society.org.uk
