ORCHESTRAS don't come much better than the revered Hallé which heads for Kendal Leisure Centre's Westmorland Hall on Saturday, October 20 (7.30pm). As part of the Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society, under the baton of Andrew Manze, the Halle performs three pieces with London connections: Dvorak’s wonderful cello concerto, Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony, and a short viol piece by London-born Henry Purcell.

Dvorak’s concerto - arguably, the most popular of all cello works - is played by Jian Wang, making a welcome return to the LSCS series. The piece was written while Dvorak was living in America, but was first performed in London in 1896 and has been at the centre of the cello repertoire ever since. In the second half of the concert the Hallé play Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony, first performed in 1914, but the score was then lost, and had to be reconstructed after the First World War. Vaughan Williams was at first reluctant to give it a ‘programme’, but the movements reflect various places, times and seasons in London – though most immediately recognisable will be the Westminster chimes.

Saturday's much awaited concert opens with a short viol piece by Henry Purcell, a Londoner by birth, which has been arranged by conductor Andrew for brass and woodwind - his Fantasia on one note. One story goes that it was written for a friend who was not such a good viol player as he thought - so Purcell wrote a piece in which he had only to play (repeatedly) one note, and the rest of the music unfolds around this.

Andrew started his musical career as a Baroque violinist, making much admired recordings of works by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

He is chief conductor of the NDR Philharmonie (the North German Radio Philharmonic), Hamburg, and principal guest conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. He has conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras, and is recording the complete Vaughan Williams symphonies with the RLPO and the Mendelssohn symphonies with the NDR Phil.

Soloist Jian Wang studied at the Shanghai Conservatoire and the Yale School of Music. Among his many high-profile concerts in China, was playing for the President. His many recordings include the complete Bach cello suites for Deutsche Grammophon, and the Brahms Double Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, Gil Shaham and Claudio Abbado.

To book for Saturday's concert telephone 0333-666-3366.