A great six months from concert series

ONE of Tavistock's better- kept musical secrets, the annual Kelly College concert series, takes off again next month.

On September 17, the college's own Music Scholars open proceedings with a reception-cum- recital, as a prelude to the series proper. Everyone is welcome to attend, and admission is free.

Trio Canteloube gets the 2009 series under way on September 24, with music for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. The trio, which features local clarinetist Peter Cigleris, in fact opened last year's lunchtime concert series at Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, and proved one of the season's highlights.

The next recital, on October 15, brings together the delicate sound of flute and harp, with Judith Hall and Deian Rowlands, while for November it's an exciting piano duo combining the prodigious talents of Joseph Tong and Waka Hasegawa.

The series takes a short break in December, to coincide with Kelly College Choral Society & Orchestra's concert at Tavistock Parish Church on Saturday, December 6, with a programme comprising Handel's Judas Maccabeus and Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on Christmas Carols.

Tenor Ben Johnson takes the January slot with pianist James Southall, with Mark Bebbington (also on piano) following on in February. Again, Mark is no stranger to the area, and has appeared more than once in the museum lunchtime series, as well as with the South West Sinfonietta.

For the last concert in March, it's the turn of Simon Hewitt Jones and David Worswick, who go by the name of The Virtuoso Violin Duo.

Tickets cost £9, £7 for seniors and accompanied under-18s go free.

They are available at the door for each event, or phone 01822 813162 for details of the subscription scheme, and more information on each individual programme.

Events are held on Wednesdays at 7.45pm in the college's Melvin Hall, with adequate onsite parking.

Back in 1991, a group of musicians was invited to put on some chamber music concerts on board a ship cruising the Mediterranean and, after successfully trying this out for a couple of weeks, decided to form a permanent ensemble.

Harmoniemusik is now able to expand from solos and duos to chamber orchestra, and from works from the Baroque to newly-commissioned compositions.

As early as 1992, they started to promote a chamber music mini-festival in the small Cornish town of St Columb Major, which has flourished ever since.

This year's event begins on Thursday, August 28 ,at the Parish Church with a programme to include a Haydn Piano Trio, Brahms's String Sextet No 1, and Telemann's E minor Concerto for flute, recorder and strings.

Friday's concert is equally varied, with a Bach Trio Sonata, Beethoven's Violin Romance in F, and the superb Sextet for Piano & Wind by Ludwig Thuille.

The final concert on Saturday presents an equally mixed menu, with a Handel Trio Sonata, excerpts from Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on Greensleeves, and Mozart's Piano Concerto No 9, with pianist, BBC Radio 3's Paul Guinery.

Each concert begins at 7.30pm, with doors opening at 6.30pm. Tickets (£10, £8 seniors and students and accompanied under 16s free) are available on the door, or in advance from the Hall for Cornwall Box Office (01872 262466). For every ticket sold, at least £1 will go to The Radford Charitable Trust, which promotes and encourages music education and provides financial support for young musicians in Cornwall.

There's still time to get along to this evening's recital of contemporary organ music by David Titterington, in St Andrew's Church at 8.30pm.

The event is part of this year's Dartington International Summer School, so hopefully it might just live up to its name. Tickets (£13) will be available at the door.