LEEDS' International Concert Season’s partnership with the renowned Northern School of Contemporary Dance, based at the heart of the Chapeltown community, is the driving force behind this exciting project.

Antonio Vivaldi’s iconic representation of The Four Seasons inspired a 21st century sequel commissioned from four cutting edge composers of Caribbean heritage. Four Seasons Of The Caribbean evokes the bright colours and natural phenomena as the seasons change in their ancestral homeland. Cassie Kinoshi’s Caribbean Spring movement is headed Kite Sailing To The Sea, To The Air. Kinoshi refers to rhythmic and melodic phrases taken from Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto and develops them into entirely new motifs.

Renell Shaw’s Summer - The Last Summer was inspired by the passing of his grandfather, one of the now dwindling Windrush generation, in November 2022. Philip Herbert’s Autumn invokes the hurricane season by developing musical themes through a combination of solo violin, marimba, Caribbean steel pan, harpsichord and strings. The mood poignantly darkens for contemplation after the devastation. An awakening tropical storm is depicted by wide dynamic contrasts and circular motifs which create turbulence.

Ayanna Witter-Johnson‘s Winter movement is entitled Black Star March. This alludes to the Black Star Line steamship corporation and the transatlantic slave trade. This dark chapter is celebrated with a whiff of irony by strings, harpsichord and the atmospheric jangling tones of the steel pan, played at this premiere performance by Leon Foster Thomas. A rapturous audience in the splendid Byzantine-style domed Riley Theatre, originally built as a 2000-capacity synagogue, rose to its feet as the four composers stepped forward to take their bows.

Violin soloist Ellinor D’Melon and Manchester Camerata directed by Katie Stillman had opened the concert with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This legendary work for strings which are deployed with immense invention consists of four Italian concertos. Each one structured in three fast-slow-fast movements. Vivaldi ingeniously represents flowing water, birdsong, buzzing flies, an autumn storm, warming winter fires and even a barking dog. The unanimity of attack, richness of tone and the dynamic shading of Manchester Camerata were breathtaking. Ellinor D’Melon’s theatrical performance style undoubtedly added to the enjoyment this concert.