This is the 47th season of chamber music concerts promoted by Bromsgrove Concerts.
All concerts are at 8pm and are in Artrix.
Tickets for all concerts cost:
£16 (full price)
£15 (senior citizen 60+ or registered disabled)
£6 (full-time student or registered unemployed)
(see ticket prices)
Click on any photograph to see a larger version of it. Click on an artist name in blue to view their home page or biography.
Friday 2 October 2009 at 8pmCarducci Quartet
with Sarah Williamson clarinet
Matthew Denton violin
Michelle Fleming violin
Eoin Schmidt-Martin viola
Emma Denton cello
| Finzi | 5 Bagatelles (arranged for clarinet and string quartet) |
| Beethoven | Quartet in C, op. 59 no. 3 |
| Brahms | Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op. 115 |
The Carducci Quartet have been winning quartet competition prizes all round the world, and now have their own annual ‘Carducci Festival’ held at Highnam near Gloucester. They are joined in the Finzi and the Brahms by Sarah Williamson, wind concerto finalist in BBC Young Musician 2002, who has been making an international career for herself as a soloist.
Friday 23 October 2009 at 8pm
Joint Concert with the Housman Society
Roderick Williams baritone
Susie Allan piano
An evening of (almost entirely) Housman poems set by a wide variety of composers, including Bax, Gurney, Ireland, Moeran, Butterworth and Finzi.
Roderick Williams’ reputation in both opera house and concert hall has been growing steadily throughout this decade, and last season the eminent critic Andrew Porter described him in ‘Opera’ as ‘Britain’s best baritone’. Susie Allan regularly accompanies him in his song recitals. We are delighted to welcome them in a Housman programme specially devised for the occasion.
Free pre-concert talk at 5pm by Graham Trew, ‘I heard the tune he sang me’, in Housman Hall, Kidderminster Road, B61 7BN.
Friday 13 November 2009 at 8pmAlexandra Wood violin
Huw Watkins piano
| Ravel | Violin Sonata |
| Philip Cashian | Wynter Music |
| Bartók | Rhapsody No. 2 |
| Huw Watkins | Romance and Tarantella |
| Prokofiev | Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, op. 80 |
Alexandra Wood is increasingly well known as a soloist and also, locally, as leader of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Although Huw Watkins reputation as a composer is growing fast, he remains active as a performer with a number of groups. Their duo-partnership is a long-standing one and, in their concert for us, twentieth century classics are mixed with recent works specially written for them by Philip Cashian and Huw Watkins himself.
Friday 4 December 2009 at 8pmEclipse Baroque Fusion
Joy Smith harps and hammered dulcimer
Layil Barr recorders and viol
Demi Garcia Sabat percussion
Ulises Diaz-Ropero Conde flamenco singer
Mariona Castells flamenco and contemporary dance
Christmas Fiesta
A festive celebration of seasonal songs and music from the Hispanic tradition, comprising lively early music with a modern twist. With virtuosic improvisations on harps, recorders, viol, flamenco guitar, hammered dulcimer, theorbo and percussion, Eclipse performs exhilarating flamencos, lyrical ensemble pieces and the swirling passionate tarantella.
This concert is sponsored by Paddy and Maureen Harrison.
Friday 15 January 2010 at 8pmPsappha
Conrad Marshall flute
Dov Goldberg clarinet
Richard Casey piano
Tim Williams cimbalom and percussion
David Routledge violin
Jennifer Langridge cello
| Steve Reich | Music for Pieces of Wood |
| György Kurtág | Hommage à Ferenc Berényi |
| György Kurtág | Un brin de bruyère à Witold |
| Peter Maxwell Davies | Farewell to Stromness |
| Gordon McPherson | Memory Crash |
| Peter Maxwell Davies | Image, Reflection, Shadow |
Psappha are the leading new music ensemble in the north of England and have an international reputation. Peter Maxwell Davies is their Patron and they are ‘In Residence’ at the 2009 St Magnus Festival. Maxwell Davies’ ‘Image, Reflection, Shadow’ – a surprisingly lyrical piece from 1982 - is the major work in their programme for us.
Friday 5 February 2010 at 8pmMaggini Quartet
Gina McCormack violin
David Angel violin
Martin Outram viola
Michal Kaznowski cello
| Mozart | Quartet in B flat, K589 |
| Frank Bridge | Quartet No. 4 |
| Dvořák | Quartet in E flat, op. 51 |
We welcome back our old friends from the Maggini Quartet. Since their last visit to Bromsgrove in 2006, leader Laurence Jackson has left to become Leader of the CBSO, and has been replaced by Gina McCormack, who is well known to us from her time with the Sorrel Quartet. They now have an international reputation thanks to their series of recordings for Naxos of ‘The English String Quartet’ – of which Frank Bridge’s 4th Quartet is a wonderful example.
Friday 26 February 2010 at 8pmMark Bebbington piano
| Ivor Gurney | Sehnsucht The Sea Prelude in D Flat |
| Howard Ferguson | Piano Sonata in F minor |
| John Ireland | Sarnia An Island Sequence |
| Frank Bridge | Piano Sonata |
Over the last 5 years or so, we have put on a series of ‘occasional’ concerts concentrating on the neglected ‘Glories of British Music’ from the 20th Century. Now we turn our spotlight onto English piano music of that period, and who better to help us in this than Mark Bebbington, who has covered this repertoire widely in his critically acclaimed series of recent recordings for Somm - which include all the pieces featured in his programme for us.
Friday 26 March 2010 at 8pmDoric Quartet
Alex Redington violin
Jonathan Stone violin
Simon Tandree viola
John Myerscough cello
| Haydn | Quartet in E Flat, op. 76 no. 6 |
| Britten | Quartet No. 2, op. 36 |
| Beethoven | Quartet in F, op. 59 no. 1 |
In 2008 the Doric Quartet won 1st Prize in the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan, as well as prizes in competitions in Italy and Germany, and they are now established internationally as one of the finest quartets of their generation.
Bromsgrove Concerts reserves the right to alter dates, programmes or artists without notice