SKIPTON Building Society Camerata says it wants to put its musicians to work, and so is asking for donations towards the cost of making music videos.

It was a year in March since the start of the first coronavirus lockdown that brought an abrupt halt to live concerts. Over the past year, the professional orchestra says it has panned and prepared for a return to the concert hall, several times over, and even now with restrictions starting to ease, there is still a certain amount of uncertainty.

It says, for the freelance professional musicians who play regularly with the orchestra this has been particularly difficult.

A spokesperson said: “These musicians love their job. But it’s not just their passion - it’s also their livelihood. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic few musicians have had any paid work and, as freelancers, haven’t had the level of government support given to employees.

“Like every other performing arts organisation, we have had to rethink what we do and how we do it. Inevitably, this has involved delivering music online. We’ve been creating videos that aim to do justice, aurally and visually, to the musicianship of the freelance professionals who play for Skipton Camerata. Last autumn it was our Lockdown Diaries project that was our main focus.”

This year, we want to continue with a series of videos featuring music old and new. The video of Doug Badger playing Bach was the first of these. We have plans to record Elgar with a dozen socially-distanced string players and to make a video of a Mozart Trio for three basset horns. “

The orchestra has also made a recording of artistic director Ben Crick’s new composition for small orchestra with words specially written and recited by broadcaster and poet IanMcMillan - ‘Baht ‘At Variations’ which was to have been played for the first time at a concert in May.

Without paying audiences, there is no ticket income, and while the orchestra receives other income through sponsorship and trust funding, there is a lot less coming in.

It is therefore asking music lovers who are in a position to help to support it through TotalGiving and help it produce more videos.

To find out more, visit the website: https://skiptoncamerata.com/