THE Penguin Cafe came to Chester Summer Music Festival in 2010 to a huge sell-out audience and rave reviews, with standing ovations and an encore that went on for at least 30 minutes.

The return of Arthur Jeffes, son of the original founder of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra Simon Jeffes, means his concert at this year’s festival is the hottest ticket in town.

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra was a uniquely innovative, exploratory set of musicians who enjoyed a cherished period from 1972 to 1997, and continue to hold a special place in many hearts. Their inception was as original, imaginative and idiosyncratic as the music they created.

Simon Jeffes utilised many different instruments and orchestrations, including elements of African, Venezuelan, Brazilian, classical and minimalist music, using a variety of instruments from strings, pianos, harmoniums, slide guitars, cuatros, kalimbas, experimental sound loops, mathematical notations and more.

The last official Penguin Café Orchestra release was Concert Program recorded 1995, a document of the touring set they were playing at the time.

Sadly in 1997, Simon Jeffes passed away, marking the closure of that period of Penguin Café’s history.

However, in 2007, to mark 10 years since his death, his son Arthur Jeffes reassembled the original musicians to perform a last run of concerts, spanning three nights at London’s Union Chapel, in tribute to both his father and the music that he created.

The reception to these concerts was an affirmation that the music held a vibrant life of its own and subsequently Arthur felt that it was appropriate to embark on a more extensive revisiting.

Commissioning a fresh set of musicians ranging from luminaries from the Royal College of Music to notable performers and members from bands such as Suede, Gorillaz, Delakota and Razorlight, the newly envisioned incarnation of the Penguin Café undertook a series of performances under the name Penguin Café.

The first of these would be an invitation from the Teenage Cancer Trust to perform at the Royal Albert Hall.

Following this, over the next six months, Penguin Café appeared at various festivals, venues and arts events over the summer of 2009, initiated by a debut at the Manchester Royal College of Music.

This was to be followed by appearances at Port Eliot Literary Festival, Glastonbury, Bestival, The Big Chill, Womad, Edinburgh Arts Festival, the Snape Proms, and the arts festivals of Galway and Milan. Each performance was met with glowing receptions, and heart-warming reviews.

It was during this period that Arthur had also begun to incorporate his own new material, universally received as natural yet inspired extensions to his own father’s work, thus marking the beginning of a new episode in the Penguin Cafe’s rich and turbulent history.

By the end of this run the band was newly invigorated, and the music now seasoned into a fresh, confident and redefined style.

With this in mind, it was decided to bolster the Royal Albert Hall filmed footage with a live studio recording of the set performed over the summer shows. These recordings book-ended this first chapter in the new band’s history, mirroring the last record made by the original Penguin Cafe band.

Arthur says ‘going back to the Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s music has been a real joy’.

“I am always finding new aspects of familiar pieces. And it’s been a way of getting back to the original way I learned music. As I compose works for the tour, I often find myself at risk of writing one of my father’s pieces again. This forces me to take a different direction, and so the things I’m writing are also guided by the Penguin music, in a sense.

“I’ve heard every piece a thousand times, in a thousand contexts – be it in the studio or at concerts, asleep in the front row on my mum’s lap. I have always heard other music mediated through Penguin Cafe-coloured ears.”

The Penguin Cafe presents Arthur Jeffes at Chester Town Hall on July 9 at 7.30pm.

The Chester Summer Music Festival runs for two weeks from June 30 and features evening concerts, lunchtime concerts, and the Big Sing.

For information on festival concerts and tickets, visit www.chesterfestivals.co.uk, where you will be able to view the programme, or call 0845 2417868.