Ensemble

Welcome to the Sacconi Chamber Music Festival 2016!

Ensemble is something that all chamber musicians strive for in their performance, and is something that we have always sought to achieve with our Festival. It represents our gathering together each year, musicians and audience to experience together, as one, the thrill of live music.

This year we have put together a programme using the many permutations of chamber music ensembles. Quartets feature heavily of course, but we also have duets, quintets, sextets, an octet and indeed a triple quartet! Not to mention chamber orchestra works and a concerto no less.

A great example of ‘ensemble’ could be the very exciting new commission of a work for tenor and string quartet by world-renowned British composer Jonathan Dove, the world premiere of which will be on the opening night. This is a joint commission with the wonderful tenor Mark Padmore and was helped into being by the very generous members of the Sacconi Friends, the Vernon Ellis Foundation and the Michael Cuddigan Trust. In coming together and working towards a single goal, we will have created a major addition to the chamber music repertoire.

And finally, what do you call ten viola players?! No, it’s not a joke, it’s our ‘Viola Invasion’! Ten violists, the eminent Roger Chase amongst them, will be performing music written for the great violist Lionel Tertis, a rare opportunity and an event not to be missed!

Rhian, Ben, Hannah, Robin & Cara