Northern Sinfonia Has Built A Distinctive Reputation As A Fresh Thinking, Versatile Orchestra

Northern Sinfonia is Classic FM’s Orchestra in North-East England and at The Sage Gateshead.

Northern Sinfonia, orchestra of The Sage Gateshead, has built a distinctive reputation as a fresh thinking, versatile orchestra, performing repertoire spanning three centuries and regularly commissioned new work.

“The Sage Gateshead has become one of the world’s most admired centres formusic and Northern Sinfonia has raised its game to match.” Richard Morrison, The Times

The orchestra’s work includes concerts, broadcasts, recordings, national and international touring with its Music Director Thomas Zehetmair, Principal Conductors Simon Halsey, John Wilson and Mario Venzago and guest artists.

It can be hard to separate the art from the life of Carlo Gesualdo, music's most notorious madrigalist and double murderer. The Australian composer Brett Dean believes that Gesualdo's anguished harmonies and homicidal instincts were inextricably linked: his rivetingly unorthodox piece Carlo is a form of musical biography for strings, tape and sampler, in which the souls of the composer and his victims seem to be shouting to get out.

Dean's work enfolds recorded examples of Gesualdo's vocal music within a shady string texture whose quick, dynamic flashes are reminiscent of a blade carving through the darkness of a Caravaggio painting. There are few occasions in music that can be described as genuinely frightening: yet when the electronically treated susurrations of the original madrigal burst from the speakers, it was as if the Northern Sinfonia had been joined on stage by a poltergeist. There's a similarly arresting effect towards the end of Mendelssohn's Reformation symphony No 5, an uneven and underperformed piece, which unexpectedly musters its forces into a massive, contrapuntal exhortation of the Lutheran choraleEin Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott. Thomas Zehetmair ensured that the early movements' curious mix of grave spiritualism and frolicking folk dances just about held together, but the cathartic arrival of the chorale sounded as if the orchestra had suddenly become possessed by the spirit of JS Bach.

Northern Sinfonia musicians are part of The Sage Gateshead’s wide ranging Learning & Participation programme, which offers opportunities for everyone to make music of all kinds, whatever their age or ability. Northern Sinfonia also has an associated award-winning youth orchestra, Young Sinfonia, and is joined for both performance and recording by Northern Sinfonia Chorus.

Projects away from the classical mainstream have included working with the Pet Shop Boys at a shipyard in North East England, a concert with Sting performing brand new orchestrations of his hits, and being invited by harpist and striking singer Joanna Newsom to join her UK tour launching her critically acclaimed album Ys.

Northern Sinfonia is proud to be Classic FM’s Orchestra in the North East.