A winter wonderland awaits in the Howard Assembly Room on Thursday 20 November as music pioneer Terje Isungset and his quartet return to the venue for a concert performed entirely on instruments carved from ice.

The concert was conceived as a celebration of the natural world and a reminder of how important the preservation of icy regions has become. The quartet features ice harp, ice horn, iceofone and ice bass, all created using frozen water from the lakes of Norway. These ephemeral works of art produce an ethereal and beguiling sound, beautifully capturing the essence of winter and the colder months.

Terje Isungset is one of Europe’s most accomplished and innovative percussionists and a pioneer of ice instruments. He was inspired to use ice to make music after previously experimenting with wood and stone. Having discovered the evocative sound it made, he held the world’s first Ice Music concert inside a frozen waterfall in Lillehammer, Norway in February 2000: “I took the sound from underneath the waterfall, and then I hit the ice. I thought it was so beautiful. It was like falling in love.” The success of this event led to Terje teaming up with Pål Knutsson Medhus to create the world’s first Ice Music Festival in Geilo, Norway in 2006.

Doors open at 7pm with the concert starting at 7.45pm. Tickets are available now from operanorth.co.uk .