There is something special about hearing great music performed live – and for nearly 80 years, Newton Abbot and District Society of Arts, affectionately known as nadsa, concerts have been bringing outstanding musicians to the heart of Newton Abbot.

And their 2026–27 season continues that tradition with seven Sunday-afternoon concerts offering an exciting mix of internationally acclaimed performers, chamber music, piano, brass, opera and more.

The new season opens on Sunday, September 27 with celebrated cellist Robert Cohen, joined by pianist Dina Duisen. Their programme combines Beethoven and Brahms cello sonatas with beautiful works by Fauré – this is chamber music of the highest order.

October 25 sees Italian pianist Daniele Rinaldo presenting a recital of colour and contrast, journeying from the hushed stillness of Arvo Pärt and the shimmer of Ravel through Chopin and a contemporary voice to the breadth of late Schubert.

On November 22 by Ensemble Mirage will perform An Afternoon of Autumnal Clarinet Colours, bringing clarinet, strings and an engaging chamber-music repertoire including Brahms’s masterpiece, the Clarinet Quintet in B minor.

The season continues into the new year on January 24 with a visit from one of the United Kingdom's foremost brass ensembles, Buck Brass. Their concert will range across four centuries in a single afternoon, from Haydn and Imogen Holst to Poulenc, Florence Price and a much-loved hymn: brilliant, intimate and full of surprise.

February 28 sees pianist Tim Horton presenting an afternoon of Viennese masterworks: three contrasting Beethoven sonatas, culminating in the celebrated Pathétique, followed by Schubert’s four beautiful and finely crafted impromptus.

The following month welcomes the return of the prize-winning Barbican Quartet. Their programme on March 21 spans more than a century. It opens with Mozart’s late “Prussian” quartet, continues with the searching intensity of Zemlinsky and finishes with one of Beethoven’s boldest and most exhilarating works, the third of the Razumovsky quartets.

The season concludes in April when prize-winning trio CarmenCo present My My My Delilah on April 25. This brand-new concert and play retells the story of Samson and Delilah from Delilah’s own point of view.

Part music, part theatre and shot through with comedy, it asks what really lay behind her infamous betrayal. By turns deeply moving, irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny, it is built around music from Saint-Saëns’s opera and a feast of operatic favourites in the trio’s own arrangements.

So whether you are a lifelong classical-music enthusiast, an occasional concertgoer, or simply looking for something memorable to do on a Sunday afternoon, the 2026–27 nadsa season deserves a place in your musical diary.

Nadsa thanks its recurring sponsors Austins Department Store, C and M Pike Trust and Rathbone Investment Management Ltd. Don and Betty Frampton, Keith Stokes-Smith, Sylvia Edge and Ruth and Peter Lowe will be joining them this season, and Teignbridge District Council’s Community Fund also provides welcome financial support.

For more details about all concerts visit the website www.nadsa.co.uk. Tickets for all concerts must be booked in advance.