Performer: Peter Francomb

Julian Rachlin visits Royal Northern Sinfonia as soloist and conductor, infusing Sibelius, Mozart and Tchaikovsky with a spirit of dreamy romanticism.

One of the challenges facing performers, and listeners, of Britten’s music is the availability of the superb recordings that Britten made, often with the musicians for whom the music was written; performers have to take guidance from the recordings without slavishly imitating them, and us listeners (and reviewers even more so) have to be alert to the danger of making comparisons.

Ensemble 7Bridges, directed by Richard Rijnvos, Head of Composition at Durham University, and conducted by James Weeks, brings together some of the North East’s specialist professional performers of contemporary music, supported by Durham University, with the aim of contributing to the development of new music in the North East.