London soloists play 'Cathedral of the Vale'

What do London, Leicester, Bedford, Basingstoke and Bristol have in common? Answer: they are all cities where the Philharmonia Orchestra has residencies. Nothing remarkable in that. But add rural Oxfordshire into the mix, and you could be forgiven for raising an eyebrow or two.

Next weekend, St Mary's Church, Uffington - known as the Cathedral of the Vale - will become the unlikely setting for a recital by some of the Philharmonia's finest, providing a rare opportunity to hear top-quality music outside any major city.

The event is the brainchild of Springline Arts, which was formed earlier this year with a mission to bring classical music into the countryside. The inaugural season featured sell-out concerts by artists such as the Athena String Quartet (whose members are all from the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera) and the Mellstock Band. Now things are hotting up with the launch of the Soloists of the Philharmonia as the official Ensemble in Residence.

"We really wanted to have a flagship ensemble that could set the level of the type of concerts we wanted to do," explained Daniel Rye, one of Springline's four co-founders. "So I think we've done really well forming this partnership. The Philharmonia has always been one of my favourite British orchestras. They're the most recorded orchestra in the world, and they've also got a tradition of attracting really fine soloists as their principal players."

So how did a small, local organisation like Springline Arts manage to hook players from one of this country's top orchestras for its official residency?

"It was a stroke of luck that I approached them at just the right time," Daniel admitted. "The orchestra itself is wanting to promote the soloists as an ensemble, perhaps slightly more high profile than they've done in the past.

"They're going to be having a series of concerts in London and other places, and so when we came up with this suggestion as to whether they would be our Ensemble-in-Residence, they were very keen.

"Obviously orchestras have their big, prestigious venues for their regular concerts, but they also like to do a whole range of things, and it's actually nice for the players to come out on a Sunday and go to a nice little village. So I think they like the variety of it.

"The other thing is that most orchestras have a system where most of the principals are doubled, so they're not all working at the same time. This gives them the chance to do chamber music as well. Speaking as an orchestral musician myself, playing in an orchestra is wonderful, but it's also wonderful to play chamber music."

The launch concert will feature the Philharmonia's current leader, Japanese sensation Maya Iwabuchi, along with principal violist Rachel Roberts and principal cellist David Cohen, in a programme of Handel, Mozart and Beethoven. Daniel is confident that St Mary's is the ideal venue to show off their talents to the full.

"It's a wonderful church," he said. "We've not done a concert there yet but we've been looking around for quite a while to find various venues. It just seems to be a wonderful place for chamber music. It's got lovely acoustics and it has a large space in the middle of the church, which means that we can have the audience on more than one side. So it's almost going to be music in the round, which will be nice for the audience, because it means that no one will be that far away from the performance."

Daniel hopes that both the location and the quality of the performers will entice people from a wider geographical area than their previous concerts.

"So far our concerts have been within a fairly small region west of Wantage, but with this concert we're hoping that people will be coming from Oxford, Newbury and other places that are not too far away."

As for the future, Springline Arts has another concert with the Soloists lined up for next July, again in Uffington, as well concerts with other artists in Lambourn and Ardington. They are also planning an Elgar celebration concert next June to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, and this - unusually for them - will be in Oxford, at the Holywell Music Room.

Springline's new residency is undoubtedly a bold step, but one that Daniel hopes will continue for many years.

"One of the things that I hope will work really well is the fact that it's a flexible ensemble. It can be anything from a brass group to a string quartet, to a wind group or a mixture.

"This means that every concert we give can be a different ensemble, and it's nice to have that variety. We're actually the first organisation to have the Soloists as a residency, so that's really exciting."

Soloists of the Philharmonia will be at St Mary's Church, Uffington, on Sunday. Tickets are £5/£11/£18 and include drinks. For details, visit www.springlinearts.co.uk or call 01235 762975.