ABSTRACT
Almost every town of any size in the north-east of England seems to have hosted a subscription series of concerts during the eighteenth century. The earliest known series was put on in York in the late 1720s; Newcastle followed suit in the mid-1730s, and Durham shortly afterwards. Smaller towns such as Sunderland, Morpeth, and Darlington had subscription concerts in the second half of the century, but little information can be gleaned for most of these shorter-lived series. In many cases across the north-east, the subscription series seem to have been the result of collaboration between so-called gentlemen amateurs and professional musicians in the region; this chapter explores the extent of gentlemen-amateur involvement, therefore, and the different roles these amateurs were willing to take on.
