A CLASSICAL music festival will take place at the end of July.

Corbridge Chamber Music Festival will take place from July 28 until July 31 at St. Andrews Church.

A fundraiser was held on April 23 with the proceeds going towards the finances of the festival, aiming to raise its profile and encouraging people to share news of the its return.

Robert Plane is a clarinetist and his wife Lucy is part of the Gould Piano Trio, who are joint artistic directors of the festival.

Robert said: "The church is really excited. They're great music lovers and the events that were due to take place before our fundraiser got cancelled so it was the first music event they'd hosted for a while."

This year will be the 23rd year of the festival, which started in 1999. 

The festival will have a 'Come and Play Event' for amateur musicians to try classical performing.

There will be an event at Forum Books, as one of the pieces performed will be based on a poem by writer Sinead Morrissey, and events will also take place at the parish hall.

The festival moved online in 2020, and was run as a hybrid event in 2021 with in-person events for reduced audiences.

Robert said: "It felt really special to keep the festival going.

"We recorded programmes at home which were broadcast online but we're back to normal this year. We're quite proud we've never missed a year."

"Lots of locals come and people plan to come and stay in Corbridge as a holiday, and there's always loads of stuff to do when you're not at the concerts, it's the ideal complete package." 

"It's going to be a really top-class performance. Well-known classical musicians will be playing on people's doorsteps, and as performing artists we like to think people missed live music and events. We need people to come to support musicians and keep the event going. It's a fantastic venue with amazing acoustics, and we want to show we're normal people who happen to play music as a profession, and we're nothing to be scared of."

For more information and to book tickets for the festival, go to their website corbridgefestival.co.uk.