An innovation in this concert was that conductor Natalia Luis-Bassa spoke at some length to the audience in between items, describing and analysing them quite humorously.

It perhaps says something about the entrenched formality of classical music concerts that it should be such a surprise when lines of verbal communication are ..read more

Here’s where you could help us. Nowadays, we feature the biographies of our conductors regularly in our concert programmes. Back in the 1920s and 1930s they barely got a mention.  So we know that J Fletcher Sykes took up the baton as conductor in 1920 and that he was succeeded ..read more

In addition to being Principal Conductor of the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra, Natalia is Musical Director of the Haffner Orchestra in Lancaster and the Hallam Sinfonia in Sheffield. Since winning the second prize at the Maazel-Vilar Conductors’ Competition in New York in 2002, she has worked with orchestras both in the ..read more

Nicholas Cleobury is a highly versatile conductor who has established a considerable reputation in the concert hall, opera house and recording studio. He studied with Sir Adrian Boult and was assistant to numerous leading conductors, notably Bernstein, Boulez and Haitink. His sense of period style was nurtured early as conductor ..read more

This extract from a newspaper article from the 1890s throws some light on William Henry Cross, the first conductor of the “Phil” under its new name (adopted in 1884). The article was supplied by Margaret Hall, an Australian descendant of Mr Cross, and reads:

“Although the composer is doubtless ..read more