The Quiet Power Of Sunday: Inside Harrogate’s International Sunday Series

Call me an (old) romantic. Actually, don't. But Harrogate is different on a Sunday. The pavements are slower. The light feels softer across the Stray. You might well see people gathering in twos and threes, drifting toward the Old Swan Hotel - not for spectacle, but for something steadier. Coffee cups in hand, coats folded over chairs, conversations settling into a hush.

For more than three decades, the Harrogate International Sunday Series has offered the town this ritual: live music, performed at close quarters, in the kind of setting that feels more like a shared room than a grand stage.

Harrogate International Sunday…

It is easy, in cultural conversations, to focus on the big moments - the summer festivals, the headline acts, the touring productions that arrive with scale and fanfare. But the Sunday Series has built something different. It has built continuity. And continuity, in this North Yorkshire town, is valued.

The format is deceptively simple. A morning concert. An intimate venue. A programme that moves between eras and styles. No evening formality, no sense of occasion that feels exclusive. Just music, wrapped-up into the rhythm of a weekend.

That accessibility is part of its quiet strength. Sunday mornings arguably offer a softer entry point into classical music - particularly for those who might not see themselves as regular concert-goers. There is something disarming about arriving in daylight, settling with a coffee, and allowing sound to fill the room without ceremony.

Over 30 years, that pattern has created not just audiences, but a habit of listening. People return. They bring their friends. They recognise faces across the rows. The series is less of an event and more of a shared space - one that belongs as much to Harrogate as to the artists who travel here.

And that exchange - between town and musician - is where the Sunday Series excells.

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Next month, clarinettist Mebrakh Haughton-Johnson joins the programme, performing alongside pianist Kumi Matsuo. On paper, his credentials are formidable: a graduate of the Royal College of Music and the Juilliard School, a multi-instrumentalist, a performer who has toured internationally.

But what feels most compelling about Haughton-Johnson is not the résumé. It is the way he talks about connection.

He describes live performance not as display, but as exchange - “the act of people from different walks of life, with different lived experiences, coming together to share an artistic moment”

For him, the audience is not peripheral. They are “the most essential presence in giving meaning to sound”.

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In a setting like the Old Swan, that idea resonates differently. The proximity of performer and listener collapses distance. You are close enough to see breath drawn before a phrase. Close enough to sense concentration shift in the room. The music does not feel projected outward; it feels held collectively.

Haughton-Johnson’s programme - moving through Brahms, Schumann and Debussy - is rooted in tradition, yet he describes it in three words that feel quietly expansive: “Rooted. Curious. Meaning.”

Those words could just as easily describe the Sunday Series itself.

There is an understandable temptation, when talking about classical music, to lean into prestige. International training. Major concert halls. Acclaim. But what sustains a cultural ecology in a town like Harrogate is not prestige alone. It is presence.

The Sunday Series provides a platform for artists at varying stages of their careers, but more importantly, it provides a regular meeting point for the community. Over time, this consistency has built a special confidence - in audiences, in organisers, in the idea that world-class artistry does not only belong to metropolitan centres. It belongs in Harrogate too.

Haughton-Johnson speaks openly about the support systems that shaped him - his family, and ensembles like Chineke! Chamber Ensemble - and even reflects that, without music, he might have pursued a path in clinical psychology. That's a striking admission. Listening, after all, is at the heart of both disciplines.

Perhaps that is part of what makes these Sunday mornings work. They are not simply about performance. They are about listening - actively, generously, together.

In an age of digital saturation, where music is endlessly accessible yet often consumed alone, the physical gathering of bodies in a room still carries weight. Haughton-Johnson describes live audiences as an inspiration in themselves. The energy moves both ways. Meaning is co-created.

And I think the town shapes these performances too.

There is something quietly powerful about an internationally trained musician playing on a Sunday morning in North Yorkshire. Not in defiance of London or New York, but alongside them - as part of a broader cultural conversation that does not require relocation to matter.

The Old Swan Hotel, with its history and intimacy, is more than a backdrop. It becomes a participant in these moments. The architecture holds the sound. The room remembers previous concerts. Regular attendees carry fragments of past programmes into the present moment.

Cultural infrastructure often works invisibly. It is easy to overlook the work required to sustain a series for three decades. But the Sunday Series demonstrates what can happen when commitment meets care. When organisers prioritise access. When audiences show up repeatedly. When artists are invited not only to perform, but to connect.

Harrogate International Festivals, which oversees the series, speaks frequently about community and outreach. On Sunday mornings, that mission feels tangible. Not abstract, not strategic — but lived.

Returning to the Room: When the final note fades, there is always a brief suspension. Applause follows, but so does conversation. People linger. They step back out into the daylight carrying something intangible.

Perhaps inspiration. Perhaps curiosity. Perhaps simply the reminder that collective experiences still matter.

Haughton-Johnson hopes audiences leave having discovered something new - from different eras, different places - and that the music resonates beyond the hall.

And in Harrogate, that resonance does not dissipate immediately. It travels into cafés, across the Stray, into the quieter hours of the afternoon.

The Sunday Series is not loud about its importance. It doesn't need to be.

Its power lies in repetition. In return. In the simple act of gathering on a Sunday morning to listen - together.

And in a town shaped by history and habit, that kind of shared ritual is not incidental. It is essential.

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For more info on the upcoming season and booking CLICK HERE

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Header image - Mebrakh Haughton-Johnson (Michael Wharley)