Scarborough Spa Orchestra: A musical legend returns to Yorkshire as the last of its kind for summer 2023

To musical director Paul Laidlaw, as the orchestra marks its return this Sunday, it’s a little frisson of fun. There’s history, nostalgia and music, all to the sound of the sea. And then there’s the cream tea.

“People have this concept of the Proms, and of it being very serious,” he laughed. “The kind of music that ‘granny would listen to’. We also do show music, dance band, jazz. There are only 10 of us. But the sounds - it could be a Mozart serenade or Phantom of the Opera.”

This summer marks the Scarborough Spa Orchestra’s 111th anniversary year.

Librarian and archivist, Stephen Walker, in a history written for the orchestra's centenary in 2012, said "every musical drama needs a prelude". Here, he outlined, the story began with the 1620s discovery of the resort spa’s healing waters. Soon, visitors were flocking to the town and society's expectations grew to bands, balls and music.

There are some records of local musicians, dating back to 1840. References to a brass band, a military band. Then the legend of Alick Maclean. He decided boldly to form an orchestra in 1912.

Other musical directors are also recalled with much affection, not least Tom Jenkins, Eugene Pini, and of course the man charged with putting Scarborough on the musical map. Max Jaffa is appointed his own chapter. His arrival, for the 1960 season, was considered quite the coup, and he stayed for 27 consecutive years. In his time, the Grand Hall is said to have filled to 1,000 people or more each evening, and frequently more.

This seaside tradition now stands as a bastion to finer times. Still today, it’s all rather lovely. There are morning concerts, in the spa suncourt, evenings in the grand spa hall, then gala nights, a ‘teddy bear’s picnic’.

The schedule, with seven concerts a week, remains somewhat smaller. Before the pandemic, theirs was a 15-week season, with nine concerts. Everything in entertainment, conceded Mr Laidlaw, has “taken a knock”. It’s worth cherishing something special.

“If we can get the same number of people in a shorter number of weeks there is less chance of a loss, or even a small profit,” he said hopefully. “There is a lot on in the world of entertainment. The days of people going out three or four times a week, well it might now be once a fortnight.”

But to the orchestra, visitors are loyal. There is a ‘core’ of season ticket holders, who attend everything. The majority, said Mr Laidlaw, are “old friends”, who come back to holiday year after year.

“You can almost tell what week it is in summer, by who is here,” he said. “Older people, who have been coming for some time, will bring their children. The young people, who they introduced to it, carry on coming....

“Nostalgia has a lovely warm feeling to it,” he added. “We are trying to walk that fine line, between heritage and being relevant today. We’re not playing tea dances from the 1950s, we don’t sit there in old-style uniforms. It’s not formal and old-fashioned. It’s very relaxed.”

Sunday marks the start, for concert season and Scarborough’s sound of summer. Musicians are gathered, the music is ready. With its archive, the orchestra has 100 years worth of music. It’s impossible to play it all.

What it means is a mix, with a little of every style set to feature. There are seven concerts a week, from Sunday to Wednesday, until September 13. Gala evenings, nostalgia weekend, requests shows, big band music, and Gilbert and Sullivan.

This will be Mr Laidlaw’s 15th year as musical director. Increasingly, he said, people are aware of Scarborough’s resort history. There’s been entertainment here for a long time.

“You won’t hear it anywhere else,” he said. “There aren’t any spa orchestras. At one time, everywhere had a spa orchestra. There aren’t any more, sadly. What is a joy, is when you might turn around at the end of a piece, and you just see that people are happy. That’s a wonderful thing.”