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Martinů String Quartet / Simon Wallfisch (baritone) / Gemma Rosefield (cello) – Monday 6 May

Martinů String Quartet
Lubomír Havlák violin and Adéla Štajnochrová violins
Martin Stupka viola, Jitka Vlašánková cello
with Simon Wallfisch baritone
and Gemma Rosefield cello

Krása  String Quartet
Tauský   Coventry
Sylvie Bodorová   Terezín Ghetto Requiem
Schubert   String Quintet in C D956

 

The Festival’s final concert includes Vilém Tauský’s Coventry, written in 1940 after visiting the recently ruined cathedral.

Sylvie Bodorová’s Terezín Ghetto Requiem (premièred in Holy Trinity Church in 1998) will be played here for the fifth time, after numerous performances in England, North America, and on the continent. Simon Wallfisch was the impressive baritone soloist last time, in 2016, and Gemma Rosefield also returns to play Schubert’s masterpiece with the Martinů String Quartet.

Join us after the concert for a celebratory glass of wine!

Generously supported by Diane Holt and Peter Robinson

£27 | £22 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Martinů String Quartet / Vilém Veverka (oboe) / Martin Kasík (piano) – Saturday 4 May

Martinů String Quartet
Lubomír Havlák and Adéla Štajnochrová violins
Martin Stupka viola, Jitka Vlašánková cello
with Vilém Veverka oboe 
and Martin Kasík piano

Mozart   Oboe Quartet in F K370
Sylvie Bodorová   Psalms and Exhortations for Oboe Quintet (Première)
Dvořák   Piano Quintet in A Op 81

 

The Martinů Quartet returns to Leamington for three concerts, two of them with the leading Czech oboist Vilém Veverka with whom the Quartet often works. Mozart’s Oboe Quartet is a gem to be followed by the commission from The Dvořák Society of a new work by Sylvie Bodorová. Martin Kasík joins the Quartet after the interval for Dvořák’s much loved and evergreen Quintet.

Generously supported by The Dvořák Society

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Kukal String Quartet – Saturday 4 May

Kukal String Quartet
Eliška Kukalová and Klára Lešková violins
Daniel Macho viola, Filip Rufer cello

Coffee Concert

Schulhoff   Five Pieces
Sylvie Bodorová   Shofarot
Smetana   Quartet No 2
Dvořák   Cypresses – a selection

 

The Kukal Quartet is making its UK debut on this visit, having been specially chosen by The Czech Centre. Named after a leading Czech composer, Ondřej Kukal, the Quartet, founded in 2020, was winning prizes at the Prague Spring Competition within a year. The Quartet brings a programme that embraces many of the Festival’s strands, whetting the appetite for Sylvie Bodorová’s première later in the day and building it around Smetana’s last chamber music work, premièred in 1884

Visit supported by The Czech Centre

£18 | £12 
(£1 children / students)

Includes coffee available from 10.30am in the Conservatory

Carducci Quartet – Friday 15 March

Carducci Quartet

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

Haydn   Quartet in D Op 20 No 4 ‘Sun’
Ravel   Quartet in F
Mendelssohn   Quartet in F minor Op 80

 

The Carducci Quartet first played for Leamington Music in 2009 and this is its eighth concert in the town. The Carducci’s recent programmes here have included Shostakovich, whose full cycle the Quartet toured throughout 2015 with an accompanying CD release and which won a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award. With welcome inclusions in the programme of works by Haydn, Ravel, and Mendelssohn, this is a sunny delight with musical flavours from across Europe for everyone to enjoy.

Concert generously supported by Diane Holt

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Dudok Quartet – Friday 23 February

Dudok Quartet

Judith Van Driel & Marleen Wester violins
Marie-Louise de Jong viola, David Faber cello

Mozart   Quartet in F K590 ‘Prussian’
Bacewicz   Quartet No 4
Beethoven   Quartet in E flat Op 74 ‘Harp’

 

The Dudok Quartet, based in Amsterdam and named after a famous modernist Dutch architect, Willem Dudok, not only excels in the core quartet repertoire but is admirably enterprising in the range of composers it programmes. The Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, who studied with Nadia Boulanger, features in a Leamington Music concert for the first time; a fine violinist, pupil of Carl Flesch, and also a novelist, her Quartet No 4 was written in 1951 and immediately won First Prize at the Quartet Composition Competition in Liege that year.

Concert generously supported by David & Gina Wilson

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

London Haydn Quartet – Friday 26 January

London Haydn Quartet

Catherine Manson and Michael Gurevich violins
John Crockatt viola, Jonathan Manson cello

Jadin   Quartet in B flat Op 1 No 1
Haydn   Quartet in F Op 74 No 2
Mendelssohn   Quartet in E flat Op 12

 

One of the world’s leading period instrument string quartets, The London Haydn Quartet was born out of a passion for Haydn. Founded in 2000, the Quartet has received invitations to many of the most important concert series throughout the world, and its recordings of the complete Haydn quartets on Hyperion has met with international critical acclaim. But, while Papa Haydn was these musicians’ original love, their discoveries along the way of the music of his contemporaries have uncovered much to be enjoyed, and this first quartet of Hyacinthe Jadin is one such treat.

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Consone Quartet – Friday 1 December

Consone Quartet

Agata Daraškaite & Magdalena Loth-Hill violins
Elitsa Bogdanova viola, George Ross cello

Mozart   Quartet in G K387
Arriaga   Quartet No 2 in A
Mendelssohn   Theme & Variations and Capriccio Op 81
Beethoven   Quartet in F minor Op 95 ‘Serioso’

 

The first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, the Consone Quartet is fast making a name for its honest and expressive interpretations of classical and romantic repertoire. The Quartet comes to Leamington for its third visit, bringing favourites from Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven partnered with music by Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga – only twenty when he died in 1826 and often referred to as the “Spanish Mozart”.

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Calidore Quartet – Friday 3 November

Calidore Quartet

Jeffrey Myers & Ryan Meehan violins
Jeremy Berry viola, Estelle Choi cello

Beethoven   Quartet in A Op 18 No 5
Korngold   Quartet No 3 in D Op 34
Mendelssohn   Quartet in E minor Op 44 No 2

 

Now based in New York, with a residency at the Lincoln Center, the Calidore Quartet was formed in 2010 in Los Angeles. The Quartet has benefitted from the BBC New Generation Artists scheme and has toured across Europe appearing at all the major halls. Korngold’s Quartet No 3 was written in 1945 when he was already an Oscar-winner for his film music; before he emigrated and landed up in Hollywood, he had been a child prodigy in Vienna, with his opera Die tote Stadt (written when he was just twenty) enjoying great acclaim.

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Leonkoro Quartet – Friday 6 October

Leonkoro Quartet

Jonathan Schwarz & Amelie Wallner violins
Mayu Konoe viola, Lukas Schwarz cello

Schubert   Quartet in G minor D173
Janáček   Quartet No 1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’
Brahms   Quartet in C minor Op 51 No 1

 

As winners of the 2022 London International String Quartet Competition, the Leonkoro (which means Lionheart in Esperanto) follows all this century’s other winners to Leamington – the Esmé, Van Kuijk, Arcadia, Danish, and Atrium Quartets – so our audience will know what standards to expect. In the Competition at the Wigmore Hall, the Leonkoro won nine out of the twelve prizes awarded. Based in Berlin, the Quartet also won the Bordeaux Competition in 2022 and became BBC New Generation Artists for two years.

£27 | £17
(£1 children / students)

Festival Extra – Martinů Quartet – Saturday 13 May

FESTIVAL EXTRA!

Martinů Quartet
Lubomír Havlák and Adéla Štajnochrová violins | Martin Stupka viola | Jitka Vlašánková cello

Beneš   String Quartet No 2 in F Op 30
Martinů   String Quartet No 5
Dvořák   String Quartet No 14 in A flat Op 105

 

The Martinů Quartet will be performing for the thirtieth time in Leamington and Warwickshire since first coming to the Warwick & Leamington Festival in 1998 – by far the most times for any visiting quartet.

The Quartet comes with some new members and a recently re-discovered Czech composer, Josef Beneš, who lived 1795 to 1873. A distinguished violinist, he wrote two quartets towards the end of his life, the second in 1871.

Concert generously supported by Hugh & Jane Beale

£26 | £16
(£1 children / students)