A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instrumentalists, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Other music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo-wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds, and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds, and percussion.
In music, a quartet is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers.
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. The double bass is almost never used in the ensemble mainly because it would sound too loud and heavy.
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part. However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances.
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music.
Joël-François Durand is a French composer.
A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit.
A septet is a formation containing exactly seven members. It is commonly associated with musical groups but can be applied to any situation where seven similar or related objects are considered a single unit, such as a seven-line stanza of poetry.
A piano sextet is a composition for piano and five other musical instruments, or a group of six musicians who perform such works. There is no standard grouping of instruments with that name, and compared to the string quartet or piano quintet literature, relatively few such compositions exist. The best-known piano sextet is probably the Sextet by Poulenc, one of the pinnacles of the wind and piano repertoire. Chausson's Concert is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of French strings and piano chamber music literature.
Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist in the mid-Romantic era.
Jean René Désiré Françaix was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style.
Anthony Gilbert was a British composer and academic, long associated with the Royal Northern College of Music. He also taught for extended periods as head of composition at the New South Wales State Conservatorium. His works, many of them for larger chamber ensembles, were published by Schott and University of York Music Press. Several of them were written for particular musicians, who performed and recorded them. He wrote a memoir, published in 2021.
In music, an octet is a musical ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or a musical composition written for such an ensemble.
In music, a trio is any of the following:
Costin Miereanu is a French composer and musicologist of Romanian birth.
Stefans Grové was a South African composer. Before his death the following assessment was made of him: "He is regarded by many as Africa's greatest living composer, possesses one of the most distinctive compositional voices of our time".
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.
Igor Krivokapič is a Slovenian composer, retired tubist and instrument inventor.
