Article publshed in Manchester Evening News 10th March 2017

SIR Mark Elder, music director of the Hallé Orchestra, is 70 on June 2 this year – a birthday he shares with English composer Edward Elgar, whose music he loves and of which he is one of the world’s great interpreters.

It’s Elgar’s 160^th as well, so there’s a double reason for the Hallé to have an Elgar celebration, led by Sir Mark, in Manchester at the Bridgewater Hall.

Last night he began it with Elgar’s Symphony no. 1, playing it, unusually, at the beginning of the concert programme, and introducing some lesser-known Elgar works after it.

Tomorrow he’s hosting a special presentation called ‘Beyond the Score’, based on the composer’s Enigma Variations and the stories behind them. This is one of a series of dramatized evenings originally devised by Gerard McBurney for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as a way of introducing new listeners to some of the world’s greatest music.

And on Sunday he and the Hallé, with star soloists, perform Elgar’s most popular oratorio, The Dream Of Gerontius.

“It’s a big birthday for Elgar, and we said we’d like to do something significant and exceptional to mark it,” Sir Mark says.

“These concerts are full of music that will be familiar to those who love Elgar – but others won’t yet. I’ve been very involved with Gerard McBurney’s ‘Beyond the Score’ projects in Chicago, and I wanted to bring this one.”

I asked Sir Mark to look back on his time with the Hallé, which began in the year 2000. He took over when the orchestra had gone through a baffling financial crisis and, to some extent, a loss of confidence.

“There were two things about that initial situation,” he says. “One was that the orchestra were very hungry for someone to believe in them, care for them and haul them up to their best level.

“The other was to develop the orchestra’s relationship with the public and be the spokesman for the organization, to make the public realize that the Hallé’s tradition was still alive.”

He’s taken them to venues around the country and the world, and their recordings have won high praise.

And he’s not resting on his laurels yet. “Conducting is an art so deeply connected to one’s inner life that, as the years go by, you’re able to aspire to things that, 20 or 30 years ago, you didn’t think you would be able to ...”