A forthcoming series of summer concerts at Garsington Manor will be the last, discovers Nicola Lisle. Two years after the curtain came down on the opera at Garsington, the Great Barn is to play host to a one-off series of three concerts, keeping alive the tradition of music-making at the famous Oxfordshire manor. Sadly, though, this series will also be the last, as the house has just been put on the market, almost exactly 30 years since the Ingrams family moved in.

Catherine Ingrams, the daughter of the late Leonard Ingrams and his wife Rosalind, drops this bombshell as we sit at the house she has called home since she was five years old.

“It’s the end of an era,” she acknowledges. “My mother lives here by herself, and it’s a big place, so it’s time to think about a new chapter.”

The Ingrams are determined to go out in style, and let Garsington ring with the sound of music one more time. So while the opera company is in full swing at Wormsley, its former stomping ground will once again open to the public.

The concert series opens on Sunday, July 1, with a programme of piano music by Brahms, Fauré and Debussy, played by internationally-acclaimed pianist Katya Apekisheva, violinist Boris Brovtsyn and cellist Kristine Blaumane.

The following Sunday Apekisheva returns with pianist Charles Owen in a programme of piano duets by Mozart, Rachmaninov, Ravel and Stravinsky.

The finale, on July 15, takes a different direction with songs by Hugo Wolf and Schumann’s Dichterliebe, sung by Mark Padmore, accompanied by Simon Lepper.

For tickets call 01865 305305 or visit the website www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ ticketsoxford