Amateur singers from Bradford and other parts of Yorkshire will be among a choir of more than 200 at Leeds Town Hall next month.

Members of John Morris's Sing Live Northern will be joining with the National Festival Orchestra to perform a mixture of popular classics, ranging from Handel's Zadok the Priest to The Who's Pinball Wizard.

There will be two shows on January 12 and 13, starting at 7.30pm.

The concert is just one event in a varied spring programme at the town hall.

Georgie Fame is making a rare appearance in the spring. The Lancashire-born keyboard player and singer will be bringing his band The Blue Flames to Leeds Town Hall on April 13.

Although his three chart-topping singles - Yeh Yeh, Getaway and The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde - came between 1964 and 1967, he has managed to keep himself in the public eye over the last 20 years.

One way in which he has achieved this is by teaming up with other legendary figures - Muddy Waters, Bill Wyman, Eric Clapton, Alan Price and Van Morrison.

Fame himself has made more than 20 albums and, his trio of number ones aside, has had ten or more singles reach the Top 20.

He has also played and sung with big bands and orchestras, culminating in 1986 when he celebrated George Gershwin's music with the London Symphony Orchestra at London's Royal Albert Hall.

"Really, what I've been doing is rehearsing for 25 years," he said at the time.

In recent years he has toured with his sons Tristan and James, on guitar and drums respectively.

Two other bands heading to Leeds next year are the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, whose repertoire includes music by Gershwin, Cole Porter and Duke Ellington, and The Temperance Seven with The Alan Gresty and Brian White Ragtimers. They will be playing on Janauary 20.

The Temperance Seven have been playing their blend of 1920s and 1930s dance music for almost 50 years. They will be playing in the Town Hall Crypt on February 17.

Of contemporary classical composers, two of the greatest are John Rutter and John Tavener.

Leeds Philharmonic Chorus and Manchester's Camerata Concert Orchestra will be performing Rutter's Requiem and Tavener's Lament for Jerusalem on February 23, starting at 7.30pm.

Requiem is said to be one of the best-loved and most widely-performed choral works, while Lament for Jerusalem uses words from a diversity of faith traditions.

The Russian State Orchestra comes to Leeds on May 10 with a programme of Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. Mark Gorenstein conducts.

The piano soloist Dmitri Alexeev will be returning to the city where, in 1975, he won the Leeds International Piano Competition. He will be playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 2.

The season ends on June 7 with Verdi's Requiem at 7.30pm and a programme of sacred music by Bach, Handel and Hubert Parry on the 15th, starting at 3pm.

The first concert will be performed by Harrogate Choral Society, Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir (performing as Yorkshire Voices), the Leeds Met Singers and Manchester Camerata.

The final concert will be sung by The Choir of Leeds Parish Church, St Peter's Singers (Past and Present) with contingents from Leeds College of Music Choral Society and Overgate Hospice Choir, Halifax.

The singers will be accompanied by Opera North's Orchestra, led by David Greed.

  • For more information and tickets for all the above shows, ring (0113) 2243801.