About us

The HPO was founded in 1980 as Harrogate Pro Musica and is a chamber orchestra of about 32 regular players. We play a wide range of music for the smaller orchestra : baroque, classical and modern works often featuring lesser known repertoire. Recent concerts included works by: Emilie Mayer, Cecile Chaminade, Rameau, Coleridge-Taylor, Richard Strauss, Satie and Louise Farrenc.

From the Concerts link you can see our future programmes, and the Reviews link shows opinions of our past performances.

Its players, many of whom are professional and trained musicians, are drawn from a wide area, attracted by its diverse and challenging repertoire. The orchestra encourages young musicians from the local area both as regular players and as concerto soloists. The winner of the Concerto Class at the Harrogate Competitive Music Festival may be offered a opportunity to play a solo with the orchestra.

Through its long history the orchestra has been under the baton of many highly reputed regular and guest conductors including John Forsyth, Nick Meredith, Eno Koço, Phil Wilby, John Anderson, George Kennaway and the composer Arthur Butterworth.

The Harrogate Philharmonic is registered charity no.701239

Jeremy Carnall (conductor)

Jeremy Carnall is music director of Dorset Opera Festival and guest conductor with Opera Leipzig and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. He was born in Norwich and studied cello at the Royal Northern College of music gaining the Diane Bolton prize and Conducting at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Since 2003 he has held positions throughout Europe first as assistant conductor with the National touring opera company of Holland and then as resident conductor with the Theater in St Gallen, Switzerland. Over a 5 year period he conducted concerts, ballet and opera performances. In 2013 he was appointed resident conductor with Opera Leipzig and conducted the world famous Gewandhaus orchestra on a weekly basis in opera and ballet performances. His success led to his creation and arrangement of music for a new ballet called Othello which received high critical acclaim. Since 2007 he has been music director of the Dorset Opera Festival. This annual two week summer school provides singers with the opportunity to perform two full opera productions and take part in masterclasses and workshops with international opera stars. As a guest conductor he has appeared with Scottish Opera, The Netherlands Philharmonic, The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and the Anhalt Philharmonic in Dessau. Jeremy has recently returned to the UK and is working as an educator, lecturer, cellist and conductor. He had recently formed a weekly youth chamber orchestra for talented musicians in North Yorkshire and an adult string group which he leads from the cello. In his spare time Jeremy is a passionate angler and still loves to follow Norwich City football club.


Yannis Daoutis (conductor)

Originally from Snape, Suffolk, Yannis headed North in 2012 and studied at Leeds College of Music obtaining a degree in Classical Music, in 2015, specialising in Clarinet and Conducting. Whilst a student, Yannis received the College Prize for Woodwind (2013) and along with the Trio "Les Trois Vents" was runner up of the LUUMS Chamber Music Competition (2015). During his time, he served as founding Musical Director of the LCoMSU Camerata and Chorus. Yannis returned to Snape in 2013 to assist Robin Ticciati in a residency with the Britten-Pears Orchestra and cellist, Miklos Pereyni. He was invited to attend the Progetto Musica 2018 at the Foundazione Spinola Banna per L'Arte in Turin, Italy, supporting the ensemble mdi and Fillipo Perocco working on two new compositions in conjunction with the composer Unsuk Chin. Having settled in Leeds over the past ten years, Yannis has held a number of positions in the region including; staff conductor for Leeds College of Music, Chorus Director with the Leeds International Festival Orchestra, Musical Director of the Orchestra of Leeds Cathedral, Musical Director for the White Rose Orchestra, associate conductor for Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, conductor for York Youth Orchestra, conductor for Leeds Summer Orchestra and as assistant conductor under Ben Crick and the English National Philharmonic Orchestra.




HPO at Easingwold

 

The orchestra gave a concert in Easingwold Parish Church including music by Holst, Grieg and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with soloist Ethan Shum (centre)


















HPO at Locomotion

 

The orchestra and friends at Shildon Railway museum rehearsing for a concert of river and railway music 2019. This was the culmination of "Where the Music takes us" - an Arts Council supported project for primary schools in Yorkshire. We were conducted by Monica Buckland for this event.