He's sung for the Queen and performed all over the world. Now the founder of the Sunderland Symphony Orchestra is staging the first music concert at the Stadium of Light. Steve Pratt reports.

WHEN Rupert Hanson was at school in Sunderland, if you were lucky you got to sit next to the radio in class and listen to the music programmes.

That was his introduction to classical musical. "I used to listen to Wagner. You wouldn't believe it, but I listened to the Ring Cycle when I was ten, although I didn't know what opera was, or music was really," he recalls.

"I used to go the Salvation Army and there was music in the band there. But I didn't realise I knew anything about music."

This boy from the back streets of Sunderland, whose mother was left to look after six children on her own following his father's death, was encouraged to develop his interest in music by a teacher at James Williams Street School.

"He recognised the music potential in me. He wasn't a musician himself but told the headmaster and it developed from there. There wasn't much in the way of music lessons at the school, the big privilege was listening to the radio," says Hanson.

Now 71, he determined to do something for his home city's music-making and, seven years ago, launched the Sunderland Symphony Orchestra. This now features around 70 local amateur and semi-professional musicians.

He's adding to the musical scene by staging a Summer Music Spectacular at the city's Stadium of Light, the first music concert to be held at the football club. If successful, it could be the first of many.

It all happened through a chance encounter at a North-East Chamber of Commerce meeting where Hanson got talking to the man sitting next to him and discovered he was from the Stadium of Light.

"I said it would be great if we could do a concert there and he said that Niall Quinn, the Sunderland chairman, was wanting to do more than just stage football matches there."

So the Summer Music Spectacular, featuring Sunderland Symphony Orchestra and Chorus along with singers from English National Opera, was organised.

"The people of Sunderland need sport, but they also need cultural activity, and we'd never had a symphony orchestra," says Hanson, who's sung for the Queen at London's Royal Albert Hall and performed in concerts all over the world.

"I started it from scratch in 2000. Sunderland had never had a symphony orchestra and I thought it should have. I'm from Sunderland, I live in Sunderland and I wanted to do something for my home city."

He started the orchestra and a scheme for young people, which has grown into a community project known as Music For All.

Hanson couldn't have forseen any of this when he left school to work as a telegram boy. His second job was as a props boy at Sunderland Empire, where he met such legendary artists as Nat King Cole, Alan Jones and Guy Mitchell and gained an introduction to the professional music world.

He also met Laurel and Hardy when they came to perform at the theatre. "They were exactly the same off stage as on stage," he recalls. "They arrived in a Rolls-Royce with a sort of panier on the back with all their suitcases and stuff."

Where he landed on his feet musically, he recounts, was being called up for National Service. He hadn't realised that the RAF was going to audition for its school of music until "this guy in Newcastle, where I went for call-up, said that they had just the job for me".

He found himself singing and playing French horn with the forces band. He became a soloist with the RAF Central Band and a teacher at its school, also forming the RAF Chorus in the 1950s.

Hanson's career took a further twist when he became a Salvation Army officer and member of its international music board, travelling extensively with the organisation for 12 years.

Marriage and children resulted in another change of direction or, as he puts it, "I came out into the big world again". Despite offers from the musical world, he opted to work in financing and leasing ("not that I knew much about money") although he never abandoned his musical connections.

Hanson returned to live in Sunderland with his family 20 years ago and his interest in music came to the fore again.

The Summer Music Spectacular will feature a wide range of popular music, from Orpheus In The Underworld to Pomp And Circumstance, in a mix of well-known classical favourites and great arias.

He's hoping for an audience of between 1,000 and 2,000 people. A stage is being built with seating under cover, so the show can go on whatever the weather.

"If this is successful - which I'm sure it will be - we'll make it an annual event," he says.

Summer Music Spectacular is at Sunderland's Stadium of Light on July 15, 7.30pm. Tickets £16. Tickets 0845-6711973. Corporate bookings 0191-5515100. Tickets are also available from Sunderland Tourist Office on 0191-5532000 or from the Music For All box office hotline on 0191-5342413.