Category Archives: nlce

A Classical Coffee – NLCE at Blackheath Halls, Sun 10th June

On Sunday morning, Mel, Neyire and Adam will be at Blackheath Halls in London, performing some French classics and a dash of Mozart. They’ll be exploring some interesting wind repertoire, with works by Ibert, Françaix and from Milhaud, Mozart’s lively Divertimento No.1 and the sonorous and expansive Trio from English composer Gordon Jacob. If you’d like to join them for a classical coffee on Sunday, there are still some tickets left – click here to book one.

You can also catch Mel, Neyire and Robert performing in a chamber production of the Magic Flute with Opera a la Carte, the week after next.

Congratulations to Martin Butler

We are still buzzing after the recent nominations for the RPS Music Awards, in
which Martin Butler’s ‘Rondes d’Automne’ was nominated in the category of Chamber-Scale Composition. NLCE co-commissioned the piece with the Dante Quartet in 2011.

We’re not really surprised by the nomination, to be honest! It’s a great piece, and we’ve really enjoyed working on it these last months. We performed it back in March, and since then have gone on to do another piece by Martin – ‘Dirty Beasts’, which was paired alongside an exciting new Philip Cashian wind dectet, ‘Cortege’.

In the meantime, we’ve got some exciting concerts lined up for summer – details of which are coming soon. Fingers firmly crossed that Martin can go on and win the RPS Award!

NLCE tenth anniversary coaching the National Youth Chamber Orchestra

The NLCE has been quintet in residence at the National Youth Chamber Orchestra courses for ten years. Each year they enjoy spending several intensive days coaching young players on exciting chamber and orchestral repertoire. The orchestral repertoire is always performed without a conductor – so it makes for challenging but rewarding coaching!  This year’s programme includes Haydn’s Symphony No.99 and Kodaly’s fantastically colourful Galanta Dances. To celebrate their tenth anniversary this year, they will be combining forces with members of the NYCO woodwind section to perform an extract from their new commission from Philip Cashian Cortege – a wind dectet especially written for the NLCE to play alongside young musicians. The performance will take place on Monday 2nd April, alongside Martin Butler’s Dirty Beasts, narrated by the highly charismatic Paul Rissmann.

NLCE at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham

On Thursday 1 March the NLCE will be performing at the wonderful Lakeside Arts in Nottingham.  Robert, Melanie, Neyire, Stephen and Adam are teaming up with the Dante String Quartet to perform Beethoven’s magnificent Septet in E flat, Spohr’s Nonet and a contemporary work by Martin Butler – his Nonet: Rondes d’Automne.

The NLCE performed with the Dante Quartet at last summer’s Cheltenham Festival and are delighted to be together again performing this exciting programme – especially Martin Butler’s work, which is an NLCE commission.

You can book tickets to the concert here.

All the world’s a stage – NLCE launch new programmes

The New London Chamber Ensemble has just launched their new programmes for the 2012/13 season and audiences can expect some pretty riveting and unusual stuff!

The NLCE are already well-known for their unique performance style and innovative repertoire, but for this season they’re offering a theatrical take on chamber music with an intriguing programme of semi-staged works. A majestic procession to Byrd’s ‘Pavane & Galliard’, a staged performance of Berio’s Opus No Zoo which takes the performers around the stage and beyond and a unique performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s famous ‘Flight of the Bumble Bee’…it’s certainly not your average chamber concert! They’ll also be revisiting Carl Nielson’s fantastic ‘Wind Quintet’ (op.43), which they recorded back in 2009 to great acclaim and there’s a chance to hear a work by the inimitable Moondog – the twentieth century American composer, musician, poet and inventor of several new musical instruments.

Combining Word and Music has always been a big interest for the performers, and their family-friendly programme – ‘Telling Tales’ – is a culmination of some of their favourite works, performed with narrator. It includes a narrated version of Prokofiev’s classic ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and a wonderfully witty composition by contemporary composer Martin Butler based on Roald Dahl’s collection of poems Dirty Beasts.

That’s not to say the classics are forgotten  – as well as an indulgent programme of French fantasies (including the piquant Poulenc Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon and Ravel’s glorious Mother Goose Suite) there is also a selection of unique arrangements of works by Mozart – including some unusual and little-heard works written for the mechanical organ.

To find out how the NLCE could perform one of their new programmes for your venue or society, do get in contact using the contact details above.

RVW Trust supports the NLCE in a new commission from Philip Cashian

We’re delighted to report that the RVW Trust have very generously decided to support a new initiative by the New London Chamber Ensemble.  The NLCE will commission Philip Cashian to write a new work for double wind quintet, which the NLCE will use as a side-by-side piece for student and young wind quintets to play alongside the NLCE.  This is a fabulous project to encourage youngsters with Phil’s dynamic style of ‘adrenlin-junkie’ new music, as well as offer experience playing with top-flight professionals.

The NLCE will be working with student quintets from the Royal Academy of Music, the Purcell School and the National Youth Chamber Orchestra.  And we hope to confirm collaborations with other institutions too.

Watch this space for more information and some video trailers of some ‘taster’ pieces that Phil is currently writing to promote the project.