Dark Peak Music

12/06/2026

🎶Calling all young musicians and their families! A fantastic opportunity to hear a live professional orchestra of leading players from across the UK and a massed choir of over 100 young Derbyshire singers over the hill in Buxton next week! A programme of orchestral favourites and songs from screen and stage in an uplifting and inspiring concert experience specially created for children, young people and families. Last few tickets remaining! 🎶

🌟🎶 Tickets Available now for COUNT ME IN with the Secondary Sing Aloud Choir in BUXTON! 🎶🌟

100+ young singers from choirs across Derbyshire performing alongside an outstanding 45-piece professional orchestra from Carrot Productions in a programme of music from stage and screen!

Enjoy iconic music from The Greatest Showman, Wicked, and much more in a unique performance. Don’t miss this uplifting, inspirational night!

📅 Tuesday 16th June 2026, 6.00pm
📍 The Octagon, Pavilion Gardens, Buxton

🎟️ Book your tickets now: https://www.ticketsource.com/derbyshire-music-partnership/count-me-in-with-the-secondary-sing-aloud-choir/2026-06-16/18:00/t-oeexgok

Featuring singers from Highfields School - Matlock, Brookfield Community School, Buxton Community School, Tupton Hall School, Belper School and Sixth Form Centre, David Nieper Academy and Holly House School.

06/06/2026

✨🎶 We work tirelessly to create brilliant musical opportunities for young people both in our local community and further afield. This recent trip to Manchester University to hear extraordinary performers up close and learn from world-leading musicians was totally inspirational! ✨🎶

08/05/2026

🎶 We're incredibly proud of our players for their commitment, support of each other and wonderful musicianship at this amazing opportunity this week ✨
👏🏼 well done to everyone involved

12/03/2026

🎻Calling all Dark Peak string players!

You are invited to this one-hour FREE concert in Glossop next week on Friday 20 March 7-8pm. A great opportunity to hear some exciting music and meet the young string players from Chetham's School of Music!

Join us for this wonderful opportunity to hear and support the stars of tomorrow! A one-hour concert featuring the dynamic advanced young string players of Chetham's School of Music in a sparkling programme featuring music by Tchaikovsky, Suk... and a few surprises.

🎶Friday 20 March 2026 7:00-8:00pm
🎻St James' Church, Hollin Cross Lane, Glossop, SK13 8JQ

Doors open and refreshments served from 6:30pm

This is a FREE unticketed event. All donations will support our Education Programme.

20/12/2025

Dark Peak Christmas busking at M&S. We’ve had the woodwind, the brass and some of our youngest artists. Now it’s the strings turn. Not a Christmas tune but we’re sure Mozart would have approved of the jingle bells😜

20/12/2025

20/12/2025

Dark Peak players spreading some seasonal cheer at M&S. If you’re out shopping swing by and have a look.

15/12/2025

Christmas in a (cracked) nutshell. Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet features some of the most catchy musical earworms in the classical repertoire. It tells the story of Clara, who receives a nutcracker as a Christmas gift, goes to battle with some highly organised mice, meets her prince and then goes on a whirlwind tour of international dances. A cautionary tale of too much sugar before bedtime? Or a reminder that Christmas is a magical time filled with presents, hot chocolate, sugar plums and music so toe tappingly infectious you’ll be humming it until Boxing Day!

Why not come down to Old Glossop Church this coming Tuesday? Have a warming glass of mulled wine, a mince pie and sit back, relax and enjoy excerpts from The Nutcracker Suite played by your local Symphony Orchestra.

Doors open at 7pm
www.ticketsource.co.uk/darkpeakmusicfoundation

14/12/2025

The overture to Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck (the former) starts like a gentle lullaby, sweet and gentle…all humming strings and sighing woodwind. This is a fairy tale after all.

Then…

Surprise!!!

This is not just a fairy tale. It is a GRIMM fairytale!

Suddenly, little hints of mischief creep in. The music starts skipping like children who have had entirely too much sugar. You can hear Hansel and Gretel running about, ignoring chores, absolutely not listening to adults, and treating the forest like a playground rather than a highly suspect wilderness full of questionable real estate.

The brass show up like ominous parental disapproval: “Something bad may happen… but not yet.” The harmonies grow richer, thicker, and more dramatic, as if the orchestra is whispering, “This is still cute, but keep an eye on that oven.”

By the end, the overture has baked together innocence, danger, prayer, and pastry into one glorious symphonic loaf. It reassures you that the children will survive, the witch will not, and everything will somehow end in a cheerful chorus—because nothing says family opera like attempted cannibalism wrapped in a warm, Romantic hug.

In short:
It’s bedtime music that gently pats your head while quietly sharpening a knife in the kitchen.

All this, and a collection of absolute festive bangers at our Christmas concert on Tuesday 16th December, Old Glossop Church 7.30pm

www.ticketsource.co.uk/darkpeakmusicfoundation

11/12/2025

As part of the Orchestra of the Peaks concert on the 16th December we are performing Jean Sibelius’s “Finlandia” - a superhero origin story for Finland.

Composed in 1889, the country was under Russian rule and needed a national identity moral boost. Sibelius delivered exactly what the situation required: a musical rallying cry disguised as very serious classical music

It begins with rumbling, ominous brass, before bursting into triumphant, bright themes that shout, “Finland forever!” And in the middle, just when you think the orchestra couldn’t possibly get more Nordic, Sibelius gives us the famous Finlandia Hymn, a melody so noble it could make a reindeer tear up.

So sit back, imagine snow-covered forests and heroic spirits, and enjoy as the orchestra transports you to the heart and soul of Finland.

Join us in Old Glossop church for this incredible piece of music and much more.