The Cambridgeshire orchestra that gave Shostakovich a British premiere and had Sir John Major as President turns 50
Season launch performance: Sat 17 Oct 2026, 7.30pm
An amateur orchestra in Huntingdon that once gave Shostakovich a British premiere and had a sitting Prime Minister as its President celebrates its 50th anniversary this season with six concerts across Huntingdon, Godmanchester and St Ives.
Huntingdonshire Philharmonic, universally known as Hunts Phil, has never been a modest village band. It has premiered work by Richard Rodney Bennett, commissioned new music, and had Sir John Major as its President.
Fifty years on, the society now numbers around a hundred players and singers and spans the generations: from a 17-year-old violinist now at the Purcell School who grew up with the orchestra, to an 88-year-old who built the hall they perform in. Both are on stage this season.
A distinguished history
Hunts Phil traces its roots to a wartime music club founded to lift local spirits in 1939. The orchestra officially formed in 1977 when the local Choral and Orchestra societies joined forces under the composer Christopher Brown, who went on to teach composition at the Royal Academy of Music for forty years.
In 1986 the orchestra gave what is believed to be the first performance in Britain of Shostakovich’s suite Five Days and Five Nights, written for a film about the bombing of Dresden.
During the 1990s Sir John Major was President of the society while serving as Prime Minister. Norma Major was also President and sang in the choir, and their daughter Elizabeth played clarinet in the orchestra.
Fifty years in one room
Among the current members is Kay Coope, AGE, who has sung with the society since it was founded in 1977.
“I find it hard to believe I’ve been singing with Hunts Phil since its inception. It doesn’t feel like fifty years, but I’ve definitely become one of the ‘nodding grey heads’ I used to joke about as a young choir member. Belonging to a choir gives you a good sing. It’s uplifting, it blows the cobwebs away, and you make new friends.”
Peter Downes, 88, joined the orchestra in 1986 and still rehearses twice a week in the viola section. As headteacher of Hinchingbrooke School, he led the project to build the Performing Arts Centre where the orchestra now performs.
“I have no illusions about being a talented musician, but for two hours on a Tuesday and a Thursday I forget everything else. I watch the Proms now and think, oh yes, I played that once.”
At the other end of the orchestra’s fifty years is Farah Ashby, 17, who grew up playing in Hunts Phil and now studies at the Purcell School, one of Britain’s five specialist music schools. She returns for the season’s closing concert as soloist in Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending (26 June).
“People sometimes assume you need to be at a specialist school before you can play proper repertoire, and that isn’t true. I got to sit in an orchestra and play real music every week, long before I knew where it might lead. That’s what Hunts Phil gives people.”
Bassoonist Winnie Choy Winters has played with the orchestra for 32 years, including through three pregnancies. This summer all three of those children joined her on stage for a Beethoven symphony, on violin, cello and double bass.
It is that continuity, rather than the anniversary itself, that the society wants to mark.
Speaking about the anniversary, Hunts Phil Chairperson Bronwen Rayner commented:
“Fifty years is a long time for any organisation, but the reason people come hasn’t changed at all. They want to make music with other people on a Tuesday or a Thursday evening. That was true in 1939 and it’s true now.”
The 50th anniversary season
The 50th anniversary season features six concerts across Huntingdon, Godmanchester and St Ives, four guest soloists and two anniversary celebrations. The season closes with Elgar’s The Music Makers, a fitting nod to the orchestra’s roots:
- Sat 17 Oct 2026, 7.30pm. Kings and Countryside: Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák. Joely Koos, cello. St Ives Free Church
- Sat 7 Nov 2026, 7.30pm. Remembrance: Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Sumsion, Butterworth, Matthew Coleridge. Caleb Richards, baritone. St Mary’s, Godmanchester
- Sat 12 Dec 2026, 4.30pm. Family Christmas Concert, with guests Stagecoach Huntingdon. Hinchingbrooke PAC
- Fri 12 Mar 2027, 7.30pm. 50th Anniversary Concert: Debussy, Handel, Fauré, Elgar, Berlioz. Suzie Purkis, mezzo. Hinchingbrooke PAC
- Sat 20 Mar 2027, 7.30pm. Stainer: The Crucifixion. St Mary’s, Godmanchester
- Sat 26 Jun 2027, 2.00pm. 50th Anniversary Concert: Arnold, Vaughan Williams, Elgar’s The Music Makers. Farah Ashby, violin. Hinchingbrooke PAC
Hunts Phil rehearses on Tuesday evenings (chorus) and Thursday evenings (orchestra) in Godmanchester and welcomes new members. Tickets for all performances are available at huntsphil.org.uk.