Berkeley Ensemble | |
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Origin | UK |
Genres | Chamber music ensemble |
Years active | 2008 | – present
Website | www |
The Berkeley Ensemble is a British chamber music ensemble that explores little-known twentieth- and twenty first-century British chamber music alongside a more established repertoire.
Founded in 2008 by members of Southbank Sinfonia, the ensemble reached the finals of the 2009 Royal Over-Seas League music competition and has since performed regularly in the UK and abroad. [1]
Their recordings and performances are regularly featured in the national press. Their album Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works was selected by BBC Music Magazine as Chamber Choice in 2015, [2] and Lennox Berkeley: Stabat Mater was nominated for a Gramophone Magazine Classical Music Award in 2017. [3]
The ensemble celebrated its 10th anniversary with a performance at the Purcell Room in September 2018. [4]
Since 2016 the Berkeley Ensemble has curated the annual Little Venice Music Festival in London. [5]
The ensemble is named after the British composers Lennox Berkeley and Michael Berkeley. [1] Its patrons are Michael Berkeley and Petroc Trelawny.
The ensemble has released a number of albums, most notably:
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
The Octet in F major, D. 803 was composed by Franz Schubert in March 1824. It was commissioned by the renowned clarinetist Ferdinand Troyer and came from the same period as two of Schubert's other major chamber works, the 'Rosamunde' and 'Death and the Maiden' string quartets.
The Septet in E-flat major for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, Op. 20, by Ludwig van Beethoven, was sketched out in 1799, completed, and first performed in 1800 and published in 1802. The score contains the notation: "Der Kaiserin Maria Theresia gewidmet". It was one of Beethoven’s most popular works during his lifetime; much to the composer's dismay. Several years later, Beethoven even wished the score to have been destroyed, saying: "That damn work! I wish it were burned!"
John Pickard is a British classical composer.
Margaret Fingerhut is a British classical pianist. She is known for her innovative recital programmes and recordings in which she explores lesser known piano repertoire.
The Melos Ensemble is a group of musicians who started in 1950 in London to play chamber music in mixed instrumentation of string instruments, wind instruments and others. Benjamin Britten composed the chamber music for his War Requiem for the Melos Ensemble and conducted the group in the first performance in Coventry.
Terence Weil was a British cellist, principal cellist of the English Chamber Orchestra, a founding member of the Melos Ensemble, a leading chamber musician and an influential teacher at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Mark Bebbington is a British concert pianist. He is a notable advocate of British music.
Coenraad Bloemendal is a Dutch-born Canadian cellist, who has performed, taught and recorded primarily in the field of classical music during a career that has spanned more than four decades.
Aurora Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra, co-founded in 2004 by conductors Nicholas Collon and Robin Ticciati. The orchestra is based in London, where it is Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre and Resident Ensemble at Kings Place. The orchestra was also previously Associate Orchestra at LSO St Luke's, and performs regularly at other venues including St George's Bristol, the Colyer-Fergusson Hall in Canterbury, and The Apex in Bury St Edmunds. It has developed a particular reputation for creative programming and concert presentation, including pioneering memorised performance as a regular feature of its artistic output. Since its launch in 2005, it has worked with artists ranging from Ian Bostridge, Brett Dean, Anthony Marwood and Sarah Connolly to Edmund de Waal, Wayne McGregor and Björk.
Vilde Frang Bjærke is a Norwegian classical violinist.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja is a Moldovan-Austrian-Swiss violinist.
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Peter Seabourne is an English contemporary classical composer based in Lincolnshire, England.
Julian Perkins is a British conductor and keyboard player. Shortlisted for the Gramophone Award in 2021, he is Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in the USA. He lives in London, England and is also Founder Director of the early music ensemble Sounds Baroque and Artistic Director of Cambridge Handel Opera Company.
Philip Dukes is a British classical viola soloist.
Airat Ichmouratov's Octet in G minor, Op. 56, was composed in December 2017. It was commissioned and premiered by Saguenay and Lafayette String Quartets on 13 January 2018 at Fanny Bay Hall, Fanny Bay, British Columbia, Canada. The Octet was inspired by Stefan Zweig's novella "Letter from an Unknown Woman" and bears the same name. In November 2018 composer made an arrangement of the Octet for string orchestra and it was recorded by Belarusian State Chamber Orchestra with Evgeny Bushkov as a conductor and was released by Chandos Records. The string orchestra version was first time publicly performed by the Belarusian State Chamber Orchestra with Evgeny Bushkov as a conductor on March 13, 2019 in Minsk, Belarus.
Timothy Ridout is a British violist and 1st Prizewinner of the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition.
The Doric String Quartet is based in the UK and was formed in 1998. As of 2022, the members are Alex Redington and Ying Xue on violin, Hélène Clément on viola and John Myerscough on cello. Past members include Jonathan Stone, Simon Tandree and Chris Brown In 2008, the quartet won first prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and second prize at the "Premio Paolo Borciani" International String Quartet Competition. Their repertoire includes Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Bartók, Janáček, Korngold and Britten, as well as the work of contemporary composers such as John Adams, Thomas Adès and Brett Dean. They have given premieres of works by Dean, Peter Maxwell Davies and Donnacha Dennehy. The Doric is Teaching Quartet in Association with the Royal Academy of Music and artistic director of the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival. They have recorded for Chandos since 2009.