Manchester United
Bob Riley and I agree that 50 is a good age to be. As we chat over a coffee, the chief executive of Manchester Camerata reveals to me that his own half-century is coming up in May. And, coincidentally, reaching the same milestone just before him is the ensemble itself, having played its first chords together back in April 1972. I trust that someone in the Camerata office has two lots of cake, candles and balloons sorted.
When BBC producer Raph Gonley first started recruiting players for his new chamber orchestra all those years ago, he surely could have had no idea what it would grow into over the next five decades. My two-day schedule here includes not just sitting in on a Manchester Camerata rehearsal, but also covering its outreach work in a secondary school and with patients living with dementia. I’ll also be watching the filming of a mental wellbeing video with principal conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy and taking a look round Gorton Monastery, the ensemble’s stunning new home. In 1972, orchestras doing outreach work and making videos were unheard of, and the
