THE European Union Chamber Orchestra first entered the concert spotlight in 1981.

Since, the ensemble has gained an international reputation as a musical ambassador for the European Union with tours worldwide and regular performances in major concert halls throughout the UK.

Recent highlights include playing Bath Festival with Alison Balsom, a tour of Christmas concertos with Nicola Benedetti, concerts in Spain, Germany, Luxemburg, Turkey, Malta and Egypt alongside regular education work in the UK and CD recordings.

Directed by distinguished musician Hans-Peter Hofmann, who became EUCO's concert-master in 2007, the much loved chamber orchestra returns to Kendal Leisure Centre's Westmorland Hall on Saturday, February 11 (7.30pm) as part of the Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society series.

Describing EUCO's last Kendal appearance, regular reviewer for The Westmorland Gazette, Brian Paynes, wrote: "Occasionally a concert will be etched in the memory as being of a truly outstanding nature. Such an experience was that recently provided by the European Union Chamber Orchestra."

Once again, next week's concert promises to be a wonderful night of music and features two stellar soloists - Russian piano virtuoso Nikolai Demidenko and highly respected trumpeter David Blackadder (who replaces previously billed Huw Morgan), Shostakovich's 'madcap' Concerto for Piano and Trumpet and Purcell's trumpet sonata providing the platform for the two brilliant instrumentalists.

Nikolai was born 1955 in Soviet Russia. Apart from his impeccable piano technique, he's admired as a player of great strength but also of great sensitivity. He studied at the Moscow Gnessin School then at the Moscow Conservatoire under Dmitri Bashkirov. He was a finalist at the 1976 Montreal International Piano Competition and the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Competition, and in 1990 he settled in England and taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School; these days he holds a visiting professorship at the University of Surrey. In addition to a vast amount of the standard Germanic and Russian repertory, Nikolai is a specialist of Frédéric Chopin, a noted champion of the works of neglected composers and pieces of well-known composers such as Scarlatti, Mozart and Busoni. He won a Gramophone Award in 1992 for his recording of the Medtner Piano Concertos.

David started playing the trumpet at the age of nine, following in the footsteps of his grandfather who was a bandmaster in the north east. He joined the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra and went on to study at the Royal College of Music. After a season as guest principal trumpet with Scottish Opera he joined the English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique as principal trumpet under Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

In 1993 David formed the groundbreaking Blackadder Brass, which became the resident educational ensemble at Birmingham Symphony Hall and played to more than 40,000 children in its first three years. He is also a professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire.

A renowned soloist, having performed and recorded with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Roger Norrington and Vladimir Jurowski, his recordings of Handel arias with singers, including Renee Fleming and Kiri Te Kanawa, have received plenty of acclaim.

Grieg’s Two Elegiac Melodies and Elgar’s Serenade complete EUCO's February 11 programme.

Tickets can be booked online www.lakelandsinfonia.org.uk or by telephone on 0333-666-3366.