THE Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, led by Craven's Ben Crick, is joining forces with Bradford Festival Choral Society for a concert aimed at bolstering the city's rise as it approaches the 2025 City of Culture year.

The two organisations will perform classical masterpieces on April 29 at St George's Hall in an event featuring world-class musicians.

The Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, originally set up in 1947, was disbanded in the mid-1950s and reformed in 2021 by Mr Crick, its conductor and musical director, to support a talent pool of first-rate northern musicians and to provide a cultural voice for the north. The orchestra's fans included artist David Hockney and writer Alan Bennett, who today is one of its patrons.

It will be the first time Bradford Festival Choral Society has collaborated with the reformed orchestra, renewing a partnership that flourished in the 1950's.

Mr Crick, also musical director of the Skipton Building Society Camerata, said: "Yorkshire has a proud and illustrious record of creating art of the highest calibre and historically Bradford has been at the centre of it. What's great about working in the city at the moment is that there is a real feeling of artistic optimism around. As we move towards the city of culture year creating national level art locally must be a real focus, groups like the Bradford Festival Choral Society and the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra will be vital in achieving this aim." The concert will feature Mozart's Requiem, of which Mr Crick said: "It's one of central masterpieces of the choral repertoire, the fact that it is used so often in films, TV shows and I've even heard it in a computer game, shows how easy it is for people to respond to this work immediately and on a human level that everyone can relate to."

Vocal soloists will include the Opera North star soprano Lorna James, and mezzo soprano, the Leeds-born Hannah Mason, who trained at English National Opera, and has performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opera North and with the Skipton Building Society Camerata; Shipley born tenor, Joseph Doody, and one of the leading American basses of his generation, James Creswell. The orchestral lead for the night will be one of the country's leading violinists, David Greed, who recently retired as concertmaster of the Orchestra of Opera North.

Alan Bennett said : "When I was a boy in the '40s I was a fan of the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, going to concerts sometimes twice a week. A lifetime later I am happy to be its Honorary Patron. Orchestras need fans. Come and listen."

To book tickets go to: www.bradford-theatres.co.uk