Young Musicians | Harrogate International Festivals

An international stage for young talent to shine

The Young Musicians Series has been a key platform within the Festivals since it’s inception.

Designed to provide a platform for young artists building their careers for the future, the Festival is known to have an eye for the ‘next big thing’ with many of our former Young Musicians going on to forge a stellar career in the music world.

Former young musicians include Julian Lloyd Webber, who first performed in Harrogate in 1971, Lesley Garret and Emma Johnson.

A violin player and acoustic guitar player on stage performing and smiling.

Julian Bliss, Nicola Benedetti, Joanna MacGregor and Stephen Isserlis have all featured across the decades, with perhaps our youngest Young Musician gracing the stage in 2019, when violinist Christian Li at just 11 years old performed an exceptional programme of Vitali, Dvorak and Bazzini.

In more recent years we have diversified our Young Musicians platform, creating opportunities for young guest curator, artist in residence opportunities and broadened our musicians platform beyond classical with notable appearances from Paloma Faith and Amy Winehouse in our young musician’s alumni and Jay Phelps and Soweto Kinch within our guest curators programme.

A person DJing on the HIF main stage. There are multi-coloured strobe lights projecting onto the crowd.

Artist and Talent Development

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Three ladies sitting on the wall looking at the crime writing festival. They can see the beer tent and people milling around.

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The singer Laura Mvula takes the stage, singing into a microphone on a stand whilst holding a keytar (portable keyboard) over her shoulder.

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