Manchester Camerata Patrons are getting the chance to hear some fabulous music performed at the Whitworth Art Gallery - home to some of the UK's finest collections of art and design - to mark the Summer Solstice.

Patrons will also get a preview of the Whitworth Art Gallery's new exhibition Intuition featuring the works of Henry Darger, Madge Gill, and Chris Hipkiss.

Full Programme:

Monday 21 June 2010

6.00pm drinks reception, followed by the concert from 7.00pm to 8.00pm

GOLIJOV		Last Round
BACH		Concerto for Violin and Oboe
VIVALDI		Summer from The Four Seasons
PIAZOLLA		Summer from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

Read about the Intuition exhibition

Exclusive Recital from Camerata

From the Pro Manchester Website:

"HUMOUR met high-end glamour on Thursday as the revamped pro.manchester annual dinner arrived at the city's Hilton Hotel.

The evening, sponsored by Jaguar, began with an exclusive recital from Manchester Camerata before more than 500 members, guests and media sat down for a five-course meal.

hughdennisRenowned comedian Hugh Dennis raised lots of laughter as guest speaker while guests helped raise more than six thousand pounds for charity Cash for Kids.

The annual dinner was also a night of farewells as chairman Sue Webster, who stands down next month, reflected on her year in office and her challenge to help rebuild trust in the sector.

She talked about the ‘new energy' brought to the organisation following the appointment of chief executive John Ashcroft and his work to bolster links with digital and creative industries.

Sue also paid a heartfelt tribute to senior partners' programme manager Val Jones who retires this week after 12 years."

Visit the Pro-Manchester Website

Inspiring employees to tackle Snowdon has enabled Manchester Camerata website partner UKFast to secure a place in The Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For list for the second consecutive year.

UKFast's training facility at Castell Cidwm encourages new starters to get to know each other through a wealth of activities such as archery and raft building. Encouraged by this resource, the Manchester-based hosting company is celebrating a 92 per cent positive score for creating teams which are fun to work with.

Beaten by only seven other SMEs in this category, team members also cited UKFast as providing valuable experience for their futures and as being beneficial to their personal growth with a score of 86 per cent in both of these categories.

Managing director of UKFast, Lawrence Jones says, "This award identifies our focus on employee engagement. By creating a positive environment for the team we have been able to drive our business forward together as one of the UK's fastest growing technology firms."

Despite the troubled economic times, this year's Best Small Companies contest reported the largest number of registrations with 571 companies opting to take part. On the whole The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For lists received over 230,000 responses from employees sharing their thoughts on workplace engagement. Overall the survey's findings placed UKFast at number 70 in this year's list of winners.

For more information about UKFast visit www.ukfast.co.uk

Manchester Camerata's Music Director, Chief Executive and Head of Artistic Planning are busy putting the finishing touches to our 2010/11 Manchester Series of concerts. Just as with 'Exchanges', next year's programme will have a theme that runs through all of our work, both in the concert hall and in the community.

As ever, we have a range of exciting sponsorship opportunities available in relation to our forthcoming season, From £1,000 to £40,000, from season sponsorship to individual concert sponsors and learning and community partners - we can put packages together to suit your business and achieve the impacts you need.

Sponsorship benefits include:

• Branding and visibility opportunities
• PR and digital media coverage
• Bespoke events: click here for information about our partnership with pro-manchester

• Generous ticket allocations and corporate hospitality packages
• Projects tailored to complement and highlight your brand: click here for a recent example

If you would like to talk about our 2010/11 Manchester Series and hear about ways to get involved please contact Rob Shaw, Head of Development, on 0161 908 0041.

The exclusive event for Manchester Camerata patrons - being held at Manchester Arts Gallery on Thursday 15 April - is already fully booked!

Patrons were invited to view works from the gallery's collection before Manchester Camerata's popular Sub-principal Cellist, Hannah Roberts. This concert will include a UK premiere of Boris Tchaikovsky's Suite for Solo Cello. The recital will also feature a specially arranged piece by celebrated Manchester performer/composer/arranger Simon Parkin.

Apologies for those unlucky to get a place on this occasion. Sign up to the Manchester Camerata E-String newsletter for advanced warning of future events.

We are proud to announce that we have been shortlisted in the Community category for the inaugural Arts and Business North Awards 2010. Our nomination is for our remarkable partnership between Bank of America Merrill Lynch which, since January 2008, has engaged nearly 15,000 people in inspiration music-themed learning activity across  the North West.

The winners will be announced at a special ceremony in Leeds on 23rd March 2010.

To see the full list of shortlisted organisations in every category visit the A&B website here www.artsandbusiness.org.uk/News/2010/february/n_north_awards2010.aspx

We are proud to announce that we have been awarded a grant by the Clore Duffield Foundation through its Performing Arts Awards. Our project, What's Ur Flava...? will work with young people aged from 14-19, encouraging the participants to explore different musical genres by working together to create and perform new songs, guided by professional musicians from Manchester Camerata and Gorse Hill Studios. What's Ur Flava...? will run during summer 2010. For more information about the Clore Duffield Foundation visit www.cloreduffield.org.uk

UKFast, the leading hosting provider in the UK and Manchester Camerata's Website Partner, has been shortlisted for a Growing Business Award, recognising extraordinary UK businesses thriving despite the downturn.

Now in their 11th year, the awards - organised by the CBI and Real Business magazine - identify and honour innovation, international expansion, customer excellence and new product development among the UK's finest small and medium-sized businesses.

Categories include: Company of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, New Product of the Year, Green Business of the Year and Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

UKFast has been shortlisted for the Customer Excellence award for delivering around the clock client support, dedicated account managers and an extensive investment in R&D.

Winners will be announced at the Growing Business Awards ceremony at the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square on Thursday November 26 2009. The evening will also host the presentation of the 2009 Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs.

From all at Manchester Camerata to Lawrence and the UKFast team - good luck tonight!

Manchester Camerata's Learning and Partnership Team recently took part in a creative residency at Godley School in Tameside with funding from The Tameside Trust. Working with composer Richard Barnard and two Manchester Camerata musicians, the children developed Candlelas and the Witch's Cave - their own response to Manuel De Falla's dramatic ballet suite El Amor Brujo.

The resulting piece was premiered as a pre-concert performance at Love, The Magician, Manchester Camerata's 26th September concert at the Royal Northern College of Music.

We are delighted to announce that Manchester-based web hosting solutions company UKFast is now Manchester Camerata's official online partner.

UKFast's Managing Director Lawrence Jones is a passionate music lover and is demonstrating his support of Manchester's chamber orchestra by entering into a gift in kind partnership that will see the launch of a new Manchester Camerata website at www.manchestercamerata.co.uk.

Camerata's Head of Development, Rob Shaw, said: 'It's really important to us that Camerata's website reflects accurately the spirit, atmosphere and vibrancy of one of our concerts. Thanks to UKFast's superior hosting technology and the skills of their web development team, far from being a static advertisment for our work our new website will enable us to give visitors access to a host of audio-visual footage, increased engagement and the ability to buy CDs and tickets through the site'.

For more information on UKFast and their products and services visit www.ukfast.co.uk.

Manchester Camerata's website partner, UKFast, has signed a deal to become the main sponsors of Guinness Premiership rugby club Sale Sharks.

In the largest deal in their history Guinness Premiership high-flyers Sale Sharks have added hosting star UKFast to their stable as main sponsor. The Championship winning club has now made three world beating signings for the new season having already captured World Cup winners Ben Cohen and Jason Robinson in recent weeks.

UKFast's Managing Director Lawrence Jones believes the partnership is the natural progression of a decade long connection. "Since becoming technical sponsor back in the Heywood Road days our fortunes as a business have grown in line with Sale's stature. We look forward to accelerating this over the next three seasons."

For more information about UKFast visit their website at www.ukfast.co.uk. The read about Sale Sharks, visit www.salesharks.com

200 years of Haydn and Haden Freeman will be jointly celebrated at Manchester Camerata’s final concert at the Bridgewater Hall.

Manchester Camerata’s final concert of the 2008/09 season, on Saturday 30 May, will celebrate the 200th anniversary of two very different institutions, linked both by their chronology and by their reputation for innovation: the composer Joseph Haydn and the Manchester-based engineering solutions firm, Haden Freeman. The occasion will be shared not only by Camerata’s regular audience and Haden Freeman’s corporate guests, but by 200 invited students from Manchester schools, one for every year of the anniversary. Their presence represents an ambition to engage young people in science and technology through a non-traditional route.

Haydn, the 200th anniversary of whose death is marked this year, is known for his inventiveness and experimentation – indeed, for almost single-handedly creating the symphony.   Haden Freeman, sponsors of the concert and renowned now as the UK’s pre-eminent independent engineering consultancy, owe their ongoing success to an ability to find innovative solutions. The firm has links with Manchester that go back to 1809. That was when young engineer George Haden, who had begun to make his name in the installation of steam engines in textile mills, completed his first major contract in the city, at the firm of Birley and Hornby. This proved to be the start of an illustrious career which saw him design and install complex cooling and heating systems at the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum and Windsor Castle.

Speaking about this unusual fusion of interest between an orchestra and an engineering company, Nigel Hirst, Managing Director of Haden Freeman, said:

“When we realised that the Haydn anniversary coincided with George Haden’s first success in Manchester, this concert seemed like the ideal medium through which to put across to young people the idea that creativity and imagination are just as important – and as exciting – in science and engineering as in the arts. The time when Haydn was creating and transforming the symphony coincided with probably the greatest period of technological advancement that England has ever known: the Industrial Revolution.  Manchester, in particular, was known to house over half the world’s mechanised industry and was home to leaders of commerce, science and technology such as John Dalton and Samuel Arkwright. And it is that environment that saw the beginnings of the firm that was to become Haden Freeman.”

Manchester Camerata's partnership with leading engineering firm Haden Freeman Limited was featured in BusinessDesk.com North West this morning.

Click here to read the full story.

MANCHESTER CAMERATA AND BANK OF AMERICA GET THE NORTH WEST SINGING

Manchester Camerata will continue to bring inspiring music-based creative learning projects to Chester and the North West throughout 2009/10 thanks to the generous support of The Bank of America Charitable Foundation.

In partnership with Chester Festivals, Manchester Camerata reached a cross-section of nearly 5,000 people across Chester and Cheshire during 2008 through The Chester Festivals Education Programme. Fifteen individual projects were delivered and the residency culminated with a joint concert, performed by Manchester Camerata and Cheshire Youth Orchestra, at the Chester Cathedral. Plans for the 2009/10 season are even more ambitious, aiming to reach 10,000 people in Chester and the North West.

This year's main project, ‘Songs of the Earth', delivered as part of the Chester Festivals Education Partnership, will explore themes of songs, lyrics, poetry and the environment through music. The project will encompass six separate but linked community arts-based learning projects, developed in partnership with some of Chester's most exciting festivals.

As part of in the Chester Literature Festival schools in the Chester area will creatively explore sections of a poem through music and songs with Camerata musicians, a composer and a writer/poet. The participating schools will join together to perform the entire poem during the Literature Festival in October 2009. Camerata will also deliver three Family Music Days in Chester during the next 12 months, the first of which will take place during the Chester Summer Music Festival in July 2009. In addition, Camerata will work with a wide range of stakeholders throughout the Chester community to create new works.

The centrepiece of the project will be the ‘Songbook of the Earth'. This will engage 14 schools from communities across the North West, including Chester and Manchester. Each school will work with Camerata musicians, a composer and a poet to create a new ‘song cycle', drawing inspiration from science, the environment, geography, diversity and community into the song-writing process. Songbook of the Earth will culminate in a special gala performance of the song cycle by the participating young people, a professional singer and Camerata musicians at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, April 2010. Each song will be published in a printed songbook, documenting the project, following the gala performance.

"We are absolutely delighted that the Bank of America Charitable Foundation has renewed its support of Manchester Camerata, Chester Festivals and young people in the North West through Songs of the Earth," says Rob Shaw, Head of Development at Manchester Camerata. "Our work during 2008 produced some remarkable results and truly life changing experiences for all involved. We are extremely excited to be working with associates to build on these successes and support even more communities over the next 12 months."

"Bank of America is delighted to be supporting Manchester Camerata once again, bringing music to communities throughout the region," said Ian O'Doherty, President of Bank of America Europe Card Services. "The relationship underlines our commitment to the local community and we are looking forward to a wide range of events in 2009 and 2010 which will bring music to a wider audience."

Manchester Camerata's partnership with Manchester's financial and professional services membership organisation pro-manchester was featured in BusinessDesk.com North West today.

Click here to read the story.