With Sleeping Beauty, Hop-on-My-Thumb and Beauty and the Beast as its heroes, Maurice Ravel wrote his musical suite in 1908. Inspired by Perrault’s fairy tales, the sheer magic of Ma mère l’Oye’s enchanting orchestration is conveyed in full by the conductor François Leleux, (also an internationally renowned oboist). Winner of the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in 2017, the cellist Victor Juilien-Laferrière will perform the concerto by the Lille born and bred  Édouard Lalo, the bicentenary of whose birth we celebrate this year. His work is one of the first French concertos for cello. And to round off a marvellous concert, François Leleux will conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No.2 in which the German composer demonstrates his fervour and exceptional art of contrast.