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Carducci Quartet

Carducci Quartet

Matthew Denton and Michelle Fleming violins
Eoin Schmidt-Martin viola, Emma Denton cello

Haydn   Quartet in E flat Op 33 No 2 ‘The Joke’
Shostakovich   Quartet No 7 in F sharp minor Op 108
Beethoven   Quartet in A minor Op 132

Back for their seventh concert with Leamington Music, the Carducci Quartet have always, since they first came in January 2009, impressed our audiences with their committed and musical performances. The Quartet’s Shostakovich cycles have been rightly crowned by a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.

Concert generously sponsored by Investec

The Mellstock Band

The Mellstock Band

Dave Townsend concertina | Caroline Butler violin
Tim Hill clarinet | Phil Humphries serpent

The Shepherd’s Calendar

The Mellstock Band return to Warwick to celebrate merrymaking and courtship through the country year. In costume, evoking the times of Thomas Hardy, the members of the band all sing as well as offer a rare opportunity to hear instruments like the concertina and serpent.

With the words of John Clare, the Somerset parson John Holland, as well as Hardy, the readings and songs take the audience through the festivities of the four seasons in the rural year. The Band have enjoyed more than twenty years of sold-out performances in Warwick, so do not delay your booking!

Jubilee Quartet at the Royal Pump Rooms

Jubilee Quartet

Tereza Privratska and Julia Loucks violins
Lorena Cantó Woltèche viola, Toby White cello

Tauský   Coventry: A Meditation
Mendelssohn  Quartet in A minor Op 13
Schubert   Quartet in D minor D810 ‘Death and the Maiden’

The Jubilee Quartet bring the programme over to Leamington, where Tauský was stationed with the Czech Free Army. We add Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ to complete this journey of reflection in Coventry’s year as the UK City of Culture.

Concert generously supported by the Low-Beer Trust

The Binchois Consort

The Binchois Consort

Andrew Kirkman conductor

Josquin des Prez 500

Founded by conductor Andrew Kirkman in 1995, The Binchois Consort have performed widely in Europe and the USA, and recorded thirteen discs on Hyperion Records to stunning critical acclaim. The Consort’s recordings have won numerous music industry awards, including Recording of the Month and Early Music Disc of the Year in Gramophone, and Diapason d’Or in Diapason.

In recent years pieces accepted as being by Josquin have been falling like dominoes, yet Josquin’s reputation – the reason we still care about him today – was built on a very broad range of music.

This programme shines a light on pieces both by Josquin and attributed to him, to celebrate his centenary year. It offers a powerful insight into some of his grandest works and those now attributed to others, but were once considered so great they could only have been composed by the master himself.

“Brass Explosion!”

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Band

and The Shirley Band

 

Sparks will fly when these two outstanding brass bands – the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Band (Ian Porthouse conductor) and The Shirley Band (Tom Stoneman conductor) – combine for an evening of explosive brass music.

The concert includes music by John Williams, a virtuosic tour de force, Volcano, written by Leamington-born composer, Robert Simpson, and the premiere of a new work for double brass band by Stephen Roberts, celebrating the return of live music post-lockdown.

An unmissable opportunity to hear two of the Midlands’ finest brass bands combine as they raise the roof and turn brass into gold!

 

Concert generously supported by The Arts Society Royal Leamington Spa

Marmen Quartet

Johannes Marmen and Laia Braun violins
Bryony Gibson-Cornish viola, Sinéad O’Halloran cello

Haydn   Quartet in B flat Op 64 No 3
Mozart   Quartet in E flat K428 
Brahms   Quartet in C minor Op 51 No 1

Chosen by Peter Cropper as the very first winners of Music in the Round’s Bridge scheme, the Marmen Quartet return to the area for the first time since 2016, having won the Grand Prize of the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in 2019 as well as the First Prize of the Banff International String Quartet Competition.

The Quartet made their BBC Proms debut this August, performing Robert Simpson’s Quartet No 1, which they bring now to the town of his birth in this powerful programme.

Concert generously sponsored by Investec

Roderick Williams (baritone) & Susie Allan (piano)

“The Great Outdoors…”

This concert brings Roderick Williams to the new King’s High School campus for the first time. It is a chance to celebrate King’s Hall as a new venue for Warwick and also the new Music Department building for King’s High School and Warwick Prep too.

Williams has been hailed as a national treasure and a supreme interpreter of English Song. This programme of works by the great English masters – Butterworth, Ireland, Warlock, Gurney, Vaughan Williams and Britten – shows Roderick at his absolute best.

Tickets include a glass of wine.

Concert generously sponsored by Wright Hassall

Sacconi Quartet

Ben Hancox and Hannah Dawson violins
Robin Ashwell viola, Cara Berridge cello

Haydn   Quartet in C Op 54 No 2
Shostakovich   Quartet No 8 in C minor Op 110
Beethoven   Quartet in C sharp minor Op 131

Celebrating twenty years this season, the Sacconi Quartet were due to open the 2020 Leamington Music Festival. Now, ten years since their last appearance in Leamington, the Quartet come back with a connoisseur’s programme, part of a busy Autumn, prefaced by Festivals in County Mayo and Beverley.

Concert generously sponsored by Investec

 

Stile Antico

Toward the Dawn

Stile Antico return to Warwick, bringing a new programme that charts a course from twilight to sunrise, echoing both the rhythms of church liturgy and the mediaeval experience of night – both seductive and unsettling in equal measure.

Taverner‘s mighty Ave Dei Patris Filia, based on a chant for Matins, stands at the end of a delicious sequence of sacred music, chansons, and madrigals by both English and Continental composers such as Tallis, Byrd, Lassus and Monteverdi, and featuring Allegri‘s ethereal Miserere Mei.