A new day-time concert initiative was launched on the Sunday afternoon of 24th May 2026, at the Trinity Methodist Church and Community Hub Clitheroe. It was conceived to attract a wider group of young music students and families. In addition, it offered Society Members a face to face opportunity to meet the Society’s organising Committee at the Annual General Meeting, which was scheduled immediately after the concert.
Flautist Ellen Buller, who was originally from the Ribble Valley, with Jack Campbell on piano, who are both recent graduates from the Royal College of Music London, entertained the audience with a number of classical favourites. On probably one of the hottest days of the year, they endeavoured to create a calm and relaxing mood with flute and piano pieces from four early composers Bohm, Telemann, Mozart and Quantz.
After the interval, they played the charming flute and piano Sonata by Poulenc. Following this, Ellen performed a solo flute piece, Kokopeli by the American composer Katherine Hoover. The French composer Lili Boulanger again featured in this concert, with a short item, ‘Of a Spring Morning’. The very familiar notes of Chopin’s Eb Nocturne followed, before they gave a rousing finale with Saint-Saens ‘Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso’.
Responding to the delight of the audience, their encore was two movements from ‘Fantaisie pour flûte et piano’, by Philippe Gaubert, composed in 1912 as a test-piece at the Paris Conservatoire.
From left to right, Jack Campbell and Ellen Buller with civic leaders, Mayor of the Ribble Valley Cllr Jan Alcock JP and Mayoress Dr Alison Brown, with the Mayor of Clitheroe Town Cllr Mary Robinson.