Magic at 50: Stephen Osborne helps NCO's birthday celebrations

Pianist Stephen Osborne joins the Northern Chamber Orchestra (NCO) in Macclesfield tomorrow night (4 March 2017) when as part of the orchestra's season at Macclesfield Silk Museum heritage centre, Osborne performs Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 , alongside Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and music by Johann Strauss and Andrew Gilbert's Another Dream Carousel, a work which the orchestra premiered in 2010 (see website for details).

The orchestra celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and the 2016/17 season continues with an array of interesting programmes, including a pair of cellists; Matthew Sharp in Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 at Stockport Town Hall, and Raphael Wallfisch in Bach's cello suites at Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats. The Macclesfield season concludes with an evening of chamber music by Beethoven and Mozart performed by soloists from the NCO, and pianist Lara Melda (winner of BBC Young Musician in 2010) in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 K466 alongside Sibelius's Rakastava and music by Grieg, RVW, Beethoven and Delius.

The orchestra is at the new Stoller Hall at Cheethams School (which opens on 23 April) in June, for a concert with Chloe Hanslip performing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Philip Glass's 2009 companion piece, Violin Concerto No 2 ‘The American Four Seasons’. The concert is the relaunch of NCO's Mind Music campaign- a charitable campaign that will raise awareness and funds for dementia charities, including the Alzheimer’s Association and Parkinson’s UK.

Full details from the NCO website.