SETTLE Orchestral Society has benefited to the tune of £2,600 thanks to the Arts Council.

The money has been awarded by the Millennium Festival Awards for All Committee to help fund the orchestra's Grand Opera Gala.

The millennium concert will be held at Christ Church, Skipton, on Saturday June 24, when the orchestra will be joined by more than 100 voices from The Langcliffe Singers and the Elizabethan Singers of Blackburn.

The grant will help offset the considerable expenses of such a major event and mean that ticket prices are kept as low as possible.

Conductor of Settle Orchestral Society Howard Rogerson said: "It is an exciting morale boost to our community programme planning in receiving such national recognition for the two choirs, orchestra and audience.

"Presenting a programme of this kind incurs a great deal of extra costs, music hire, soloists, transport, marquee etc which would have made ticket costs prohibitive. Now we can charge our normal ticket prices and relax into this rare musical presentation without the fear of a huge loss of money."

The concert programme will feature favourite choruses from the world of opera, including items from Il Travatore, Aida, Nabucco, The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, Fidelio, and Cavalleria Rusticana.

Soloists Hilary Jackson (soprano) and Wendy Slater (mezzo-soprano), who sang with the same chorus and orchestra in a memorable performance of the Verdi Requiem in April 1998, will also be singing arias from Samson and Delilah, Don Giovanni, Madame Butterfly and Norma.

The orchestra will also perform items on its own, including the Overture Di Ballo by Arthur Sullivan to mark the 100th anniversary of his death in 1900.

An innovative feature of the evening will be a long supper interval, when the audience, chorus and orchestra members can eat their own picnics in the church grounds or undercover if wet.

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