SETTLE Orchestra continues its current season with two concerts at Christ Church, Skipton on March 11, followed by Settle Parish Church on March 18.

Both concerts will be conducted by Xinjie Yang, a Chinese student at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music in the second year of their conducting course. The orchestra has for several years had a most successful partnership with RNCM and says it is enormously enjoying working with its “conductor for the year”.

A spokesperson for the orchestra said: "This term’s concert balances classical and romantic themes. Each half starts with an overture by Felix Mendelssohn, his ever-popular “Hebrides” overture in the first half and the less well known – but equally melodious – “Fair Melusine” in the second. "The orchestra’s principal cellist Bob Buller, fresh from his triumph with Haydn’s C major cello concerto in our last season, returns as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s delightful “Rococo” variations; and the concert ends with Beethoven’s Second Symphony – perhaps the least often played of all his symphonies but full of his characteristic sparkling humour, suave melodies and compelling rhythms.

Both concerts start at 7.30pm. Tickets are available from orchestral members, or via the orchestra’s website http://www.settleorchestra.org.uk/. Tickets are free for young people of 18 or below, and half price for students.