A significant commitment to bringing orchestral music to audiences across North Yorkshire: John Wilson, Sinfonia of London & Ryedale Festival in three-year partnership

John Wilson & Sinfonia of London

The Ryedale Festival has announced a new three-year partnership with Sinfonia of London and the conductor John Wilson, marking a significant commitment to bringing orchestral music of the highest quality to audiences across North Yorkshire and the wider region.

The partnership will begin in summer 2026 with a major orchestral concert presented as part of the Ryedale Festival at York Barbican on 12 July 2026. Entitled An English Summer, the programme features Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, William Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue, as well as a glorious parade of British light music classics by composers including Richard Rodney Bennett, Eric Coates and Haydn Wood. 

Launched by John Wilson in 2018, Sinfonia of London revived the legendary studio orchestra of the same name, founded in 1955. It made its live debut in 2021 at the BBC Proms and has appeared there on an annual basis since. The orchestra has quickly built a celebrated range of over 30 recordings on the Chandos label, covering a wide range of music with the orchestra’s most recent releases being Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady and Walton’s Cello Concerto and Symphony No.1.

This year's Ryedale Festival runs from 10 to 25 July and the full programme will be announced on 27 March 2026. The festival was founded in 1981 and its artistic director is pianist Christopher Glynn. It has twice been a finalist at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards where it was praised for ‘an extraordinary breadth of programming’ and the way it ‘always wraps its arms around the local community’.

Full details from the Ryedale Festival website.