Northern Chords festival returns with a winsome threesome
Classical stars aim to share the joy of music
Classical musicians at the top of their game will descend on Tyneside in June to perform in churches and an art gallery – and all because of one man’s wish to say thank you.
Jonathan Bloxham established his Northern Chords festival to show gratitude to those who had provided encouragement and the means to realise his dreams.
The festival returns this year, after a break in 2024 for reasons which will become apparent, with a trio of eye-catching concerts.
Jonathan grew up in Whickham, Gateshead, and clearly remembers how his love of performing classical music began.
“It was quite by chance. The cello teacher came in to our primary school class on Whickham Front Street and said, ‘Who wants to learn the cello?’
“I put my hand up. It all started from there and without the support I had it’s hard to know how I ever would have made it.
“Classical music is so often seen as something that’s not for many people and I think we have a responsibility to change that idea and make it as accessible as possible.”
Jonathan took to the cello and was supported by Gateshead Music Service to take his playing to the highest level.
He attended the Yehudi Menuhin School, the music school in Surrey founded in 1963 by the celebrated violinist, and proceeded from there to the Royal College of Music.
He remained in London to do a master’s degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and started studying orchestral conducting under top teachers.
It’s as a conductor that he has become well known, working with orchestras around the world.
Ahead of this year’s edition of the festival he initiated in 2008, he is talking to me from Switzerland where, since 2023, he has been music director of the Luzerner Theater, the historic theatre in Lucerne.
He was already conductor in residence and artistic advisor to the London Mozart Players, having been appointed to that dual role the previous year.
Then in 2024, evidently not having enough on his plate, he was also made chief conductor of a highly regarded orchestra in Germany, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie (North West German Philharmonic).
When Jonathan explains last year’s hiatus by saying “We needed a bit of breathing space to regroup”, it sounds like the most startling understatement.
He is nothing if not hard-working – and dedicated, too. He even managed a Northern Chords festival, albeit pared down and with social distancing, during the Covid year of 2020.
“I was reading some notes I wrote about Northern Chords when I was 19 and the purpose now is exactly what I intended then,” he says.
“It’s a thank you to the region for giving me the opportunity to become a musician. Without Gateshead Music Service and the people around me then, I wouldn’t be here in Lucerne now.
“While it’s another thing to add to the diary, for me it’s really important that I stay connected to those audiences and the people who have supported me from the beginning.”
People are still supporting him now, not least the friends who were once fellow students but are now big names in classical music.
“I’m always touched and humbled that they still want to come and do it. They come for expenses only – no-one’s making money out of this.
“Martin James Bartlett has just passed eight million streams on Spotify but he loves coming up.
“I’m so lucky to have such people around me who want to share the joy of music with people. If someone’s life is changed, that’s the wish and dream all of us have, I think.”
Tickets for all three concerts are free to under 25s and a special invitation has been extended to pupils at Jonathan’s old primary school to attend with their parents. “I really hope they take it up,” he says.
Pianist Martin James Bartlett, BBC Young Musician winner in 2014, will play in the opening gala concert at St Mary’s Church, Whickham, on June 27, which will feature piano duets and songs by Schubert and British composers.
Also playing will be Swiss pianist Louis Schwizgebel and the vocal contribution will come from tenor Ben Johnson, a dedicated Northern Chords regular.
The second concert, on June 28, will see Northern Chords returning to Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery and offers the spectacle of Jonathan playing the cello.
He admits: “It’s very rare now, I have to say. I really don’t get the chance too often.
“I was just saying to one of the musicians in Lucerne how much I miss chamber music. It’s a theme in all musicians’ lives.
“Conducting is absolutely the dream for me now but it’s still nice to be making actual contact with an instrument and being responsible for the sound in a physical way.”
He laughs. “It’s so different from waving my arms around and trying to invite other people to make the sound that’s either in my mind or on the page in front of me.”
And there you have it – the conductor’s art in a nutshell.
Jonathan will be performing Schubert’s Cello Quintet which he describes as “one of the most iconic pieces of chamber music ever written”.
For this he will be joined by fellow cellist Thomas Carroll, who was his teacher at the Yehudi Menuhin School, and three other musicians with impressive CVs – violinists Benjamin Baker and Ruth Rogers plus Benjamin Roskams on viola.
Benjamin Baker will also perform Bach’s Partita for Solo Violin whose famous fifth movement, the Chaconne, Yehudi Menuhin once described as “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists”.
The final concert, at St James’ and St Basil’s Church, Fenham, on June 29, will see Northern Chords venture into opera with a concert performance of Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell.
The musicians will be joined by the choir Voices of Hope for a concert which will open with Louis Schwizgebel playing Mozart’s early Piano Concerto in C Major.
Opera has become a big part of Jonathan’s life at the theatre in Lucerne and he admits it’s always an ambitious undertaking, especially with the short rehearsal time allowed by Northern Chords.
But he says it’s very much part of his plans for the future.
“I actually dream of doing some opera in the Tyne Theatre & Opera House, that beautiful building in the centre of Newcastle.
“Placido Domingo sang there once and it has an amazing tradition. But St James’ and St Basil’s is the perfect place to do Dido and Aeneas and this is us putting a flag in the ground.”
Tickets for this year’s Northern Chords festival, running from June 27 to 29, are on sale now via the Northern Chords website.