Tag Archives: Wigmore Hall

Endymion at Wigmore Hall, Temple Church and Cheltenham Festival in July

Endymion has a busy few weeks ahead, with performances at Cheltenham Festival, Temple Church and Wigmore Hall.

They will be joined by the BBC Singers for a Radio 3 broadcast concert on 5th July at Cheltenham International Music Festival, with a world premiere by Judith Bingham and a piece by John Tavener.   Tickets can be bought here.

On 11th July Endymion will be performing one of their most popular programmes at Temple Church, featuring the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets, featuring clarinettist Mark van de Wiel.  A perfect Summer evening’s entertainment!   Tickets for that are available here.

On 15th July, they’ll be making their first ever appearance in the prestigious Wigmore Hall Coffee Concert series, performing Brahms’ sumptuous Clarinet Trio and Horn Trio.  Don’t miss it!  Tickets for that concert are only £12, with concessions available.  They are selling very well, so book quickly to avoid disappointment.  Tickets available here.

Phoenix have a great time launching their new CD at Wigmore

The Phoenix Piano Trio had a great time on Sunday 13th May making their debut at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall.  The trio performed music by Thomas Dunhill, John Ireland and Beethoven – cheered on by a very large and appreciative audience.   The concert marked several special occasions: John Ireland’s 50th anniversary since his death in 1952, and the launch of the Trio’s first CD on the Stone Records label, of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio and Op.70/2 Trio, the latter that they performed in the concert.  One punter commented afterwards: “I’m not a big Ludwig fan (I know, blasphemy!) but this just took my breath away!”.

The disc, pictured above, has been selling really well, and can be ordered direct from Stone Records here.  We’re looking forward to performing the Ireland more through this year and 2013, and our next recording, and our next Wigmore concert.  Stay tuned!

A Light at the End of a Wintry Tunnel

The Phoenix Piano Trio’s exciting 2012 continues with a debut performance at Wigmore Hall this May. We are delighted to announce that tickets go on sale today, and are available on Wigmore Hall‘s website.

The programme is a masterful blend of known and unknown works; of established and growing reputations. Beethoven’s magisterial E flat Trio, felt by many to be his finest work in the genre, is the cornerstone of the programme, following up two rare English gems – trios by John Ireland and Thomas Dunhill. We’re extremely excited to hear Dunhill’s so rarely performed work, a passionate yet pastoral treat, and it gives us all a chance to properly mark the 50th anniversary of John Ireland’s death.

Bring some spring optimism to your February by getting tickets now!

VIDEO: Endymion after a performance at Kings Place

I have just uncovered a video of Endymion coming off stage after performing Dohnányi’s wonderful Sextet in C at Kings Place in the 2009 Kings Place festival.  It was a great concert – a great piece to play – and a lovely hall to play it in.

We’re performing this wonderful Sextet next year at Wigmore Hall on 23rd October – we will let you know when tickets go on sale!  We’ve also recorded this piece, and the CD is available here on our own disc or here on a compilation disc.

 

Endymion and EXAUDI at Wigmore Hall

We were delighted with Endymion’s late-night performance of Arvo Pärt a few weeks ago at Wigmore Hall with the wonderful EXAUDI.  They performed in Wigmore Hall’s new late-night series, at 10pm on Friday 8th July.  The hall was really full (busier than for the 7pm concert that night!) and the atmosphere was really serene and concentrated, for four contrasting pieces of Pärt:  Fratres, Summa, Pilgrim’s Song and the Stabat Mater.

Geoff Brown reviewed for The Times:

“One Arvo Pärt work followed another, from the chord sequences of Fratres to the measured sorrows of his Stabat Mater setting: music of rapturous, daring simplicity, vigorously etched by a string quartet drawn from Endymion and three of Exaudi’s fearless voices.”

This was the first performance in a line of Arvo Pärt performances, not least of Endymion’s large Music for People project at Southbank Centre on 19th and 21st September, when they’ll be joining up with EXAUDI again to perform more Pärt, plus some Morton Feldman and four new commissions from James Weeks, Joanna Bailie, Andrew Hamilton and Philip Venables.  More to follow on here soon, but book your tickets now.

Monday 19th September: Pärt, Venables, Bailie.

Wednesday 21st September: Feldman, Hamilton, Weeks.

The photo here is Endymion rehearsing Summa in Wigmore Hall on the morning of the concert.

New London Chamber Ensemble on BBC Radio 3

The NLCE featured on BBC Radio 3′s In Tune programme with Sean Rafferty, joined by composer Sally Beamish and music historian Dr Fiona Elliott.

They were previewing their wonderful “Mozart, Mechanical Marvels and More…” programme which took place last night, 27th July, to a packed house at Wigmore Hall.   With a fascination for the latest technology in Mozart’s Vienna in 1790, the quintet commissioned new realisations of four of his miniatures written for mechanical instruments.  Composers Sally Beamish, Julian Philips, Philip Cashian and Martin Butler all made new arrangements of these pieces, and Sally also wrote a set of variations upon her theme.   Sitting alongside that in the Wigmore concert were Ligeti’s Bagatelles for quintet, and John Woolrich’s Book of Studies I, including miniatures such as “Clockwork Chorale”.    The links are clear!

Lastly, the quintet were joined by piano superstar Angela Hewitt for the sublime Mozart Quintet for Piano and Winds in E flat.

Listen to them on BBC here, talking about the projects, the historical background, and performing realisations by Sally Beamish and Martin Butler.