A little festival with big stars and seductive sounds
Return of Northern Chords
Northern Chords is back this month with three concerts of exceptional quality, all indicative of festival founder Jonathan Bloxham’s wish to swell the audience for the classical music he loves.
If you’re aged 25 or under, or a student, you can get in free to all of them (assuming there are tickets left).
At a time of spiralling costs, that’s a jaw-dropping offer. The musicians visiting the region over this long weekend regularly perform in some of the world’s major concert halls.
Even relative oldies pay only £15 for the first two concerts, at St Mary’s Church, Whickham, and The Common Room (formerly the Mining Institute) on Westgate Road, Newcastle, while tickets for the grand finale at St James’ and St Basil’s Church, Fenham, will set you back only an extra fiver.
Speaking from Switzerland, where he is music director of the historic opera house in Lucerne, Jonathan explains: “We want to encourage people who’ve never been to a classical concert before.
“We discussed the pricing a lot with the board but we really want to make sure there are no barriers.
“These are tough times and people are having to make choices about what they spend their money on and we wouldn’t want anyone to think they weren’t welcome.
“I don’t think we’ve increased ticket prices for several years but we’re lucky to have the support (principally from the Scops Arts Trust and the Sir James Knott Trust) that enables us to do that.”
Pianist Martin James Bartlett has long been a festival regular so it comes as something of a surprise to see that he’s still only 29.
He started early, though, winning BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2014 and performing at the BBC Proms the following year.
Now signed to Warner Classics, he will be at the keyboard in the opening gala concert which features Schubert’s Trout Quintet – which will also give concert-goers a rare opportunity to see Jonathan playing the cello.
Although he’s best known these days as a conductor, this was the instrument which won him over to classical music as a young primary school pupil in Whickham and at which he excelled.
“Northern Chords is one of the very few times each year when I bring out the cello,” he says.
“The conductor is meant to be the silent musician, unless they’re grunting, so it’s a joy to have that tactile experience again, sitting down and performing with an instrument.”
Also performing will be violinist Benjamin Baker, with whom Jonathan has just recorded Mozart’s violin concertos for a CD later this year, American viola player Natalie Loughran and tenor Ben Johnson, another festival stalwart.
Concert number two, at The Common Room, with the heading Nature and Folk, features Vaughan Williams’ ever popular The Lark Ascending, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and, after the interval, Tchaikovsky’s folk-inspired Violin Concerto in D major with Benjamin Baker in the spotlight and Jonathan conducting the Northern Chords Festival Strings.
An unknown quantity to some will be message between trees by Greek composer Konstantia Gourzi.
“I recently worked with Konstantia who is better known on the continent than in the UK although she has been commissioned by the BBC,” says Jonathan.
“This is a wonderful piece for solo viola and strings, a sort of ethereal prayer to trees and nature. I conducted it in Bremen a few months ago but this might be the first time it’s been performed in the UK.
“I think it’s important to include work by living composers.”
Concert number three – “the highlight in a way,” says Jonathan – features Handel’s Messiah, following on the heels of last year’s “incredibly popular” semi-staged performance of Dido & Aeneas, by Handel’s British near contemporary, Henry Purcell.
“It’s an unseasonal Messiah but this is a piece of art that’s perfect for any time of year and we wanted to do it semi-staged,” says Jonathan.
“We’ve got dancers involved (James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight who have performed with the acclaimed Wayne McGregor Dance Company) and it’s a slightly shorter version… all the highlights basically.”
The soloists include Ben Johnson, who will also direct, mezzo soprano Lily Mo Browne, winner of the coveted Kathleen Ferrier competition in 2025, and Weimar-based French soprano Adèle Clermont, another rising star.
“We also have a stellar group of string players - hand-picked, as always, for the Northern Chords orchestra,” says Jonathan. “And it’s fantastic that Voices of Hope (the award-winning North East choir) are back with us again.”
The concert offers another chance to hear Martin James Bartlett, this time performing Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D minor.
It all adds up to a 17th Northern Chords festival oozing quality.
As Jonathan’s career has developed, so have those of the musicians who regularly support his festival – conceived to give something back to the region which nurtured his own musical talents.
Demand for the performers’ services increases year on year, making their visit to the North East ever more covetable. And as Jonathan works with ever more exciting young musicians, the Northern Chords talent pool becomes deeper.
The wonder is that he finds the time.
Along with his opera house duties in Lucerne, where he lives with wife Mimi and 10-month-old son Samuel, he is also chief conductor of a symphony orchestra over the border in Germany, the North West German Philharmonic, and principal conductor and artistic advisor to the London Mozart Players.
Add to that guest conducting engagements around the world and his schedule appears dizzying.
He doesn’t deny it.
“Once a young lad from Gateshead, who picked up a cello in school, I’m now able to look ahead at lots of exciting plans. My diary is pretty full for the next two or three years.
“That’s a very fortunate position for a musician to be in. I have trips to the States and New Zealand coming up. I could pinch myself sometimes.
“I’m lucky to have two management teams that I work with, one here and one in London, and they do a fantastic job of organising my travel plans.
“Typically I might do a concert one night in Germany, go back to conduct an opera in Switzerland, return to Germany the next night to conduct another concert and then go back to Switzerland to conduct a different opera.
“There are lots of early morning starts with the alarm going off at 3.30am to get a taxi to an airport.
“I must say that I am looking forward to my summer holiday which starts the week after Northern Chords.”
But the good news for us is that Jonathan remains touchingly committed to the festival. Next year’s dates are already in his diary and he has plans to extend the educational activities which always accompany it.
Northern Chords 2026 is from June 26 to 28 (Friday to Sunday). For tickets, go to the Northern Chords website.