Newsletter #14 October 2016 – Strings Attached

Welcome to our fourteenth newsletter – designed to keep you informed about our activities, as well as other local chamber music events.

2016/17 COFFEE CONCERT SEASON STARTS IN ERNEST

The launch concert on 20 September by the Doric Quartet was a huge success. For reviews of the concert see www.stringsattachedmusic.org.uk and choose ‘News and Views’. One of the reviewers is Joe Fuller who is probably new to Strings Attached members. He writes for ‘latest 7’, a magazine that lists and reviews, amongst other things, live events in Brighton. You can see it at https://thelatest.co.uk or pick it up free at Brighton station or outside estate agents. He has a different way of looking at classical music and will bring us to the notice of people who might not have thought we were cool enough for them.

The next concert will be given by the Heath Quartet on 23 October in the Dome Concert Hall at 11 am.

Haydn Quartet op. 50 No. 4
Tippett Quartet No. 5
Dvořák Quartet No. 13 op. 106

Quite a few people in the audience will know the Haydn and the Dvořák but my guess is that not many will know Tippett’s last quartet. It’s a great work, tempestuous and edgy, lyrical and sorrowful, and Chris Darwin has written about it in his programme notes, available at https://www.stringsattachedmusic.org.uk . There’s also the excitement of the fact that it’s played by the Heath. Last year they released a CD of their Wigmore Hall performances of all five Tippett quartets and won a Gramophone Award and rave reviews: “irresistible energy”, “a tremendous achievement”, “Tippettian life-force surges through (their performance)”.
There’s a lovely video of them on https://www.youtube.com, rehearsing and talking about the work. They say that since they formed in 2002 they’ve performed all the great Haydn and Mozart quartets, the complete Beethoven cycle, all six Bartok quartets, but performing the five Tippett quartets has been “a challenge above and beyond those other big projects”. Why? It’s because he writes with “such unabashed creativity”. See what you think.

PRACTICALITIES

From the second coffee concert (on 20 November) onwards concerts will be at The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), formerly the Gardner Centre, at the University of Sussex at Falmer. The move, as you will no doubt recall, is temporary, during the extensive refurbishment of the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange.
There is free parking at the Attenborough Centre. There are also excellent public transport links:

by train from Brighton or Lewes, or
by bus: No. 25 from Hove and Brighton, No. 23 from Brighton Marina or Nos 28 and 29 from Brighton, or, coming the other way, from Tunbridge Wells via Uckfield and Lewes.

Tickets prices for the coffee concerts have again been held at £18.50 (concessions £16). A season ticket for the whole season (six concerts) is £99 (concessions £84). A half-season ticket (either the three concerts in 2016 or the three in 2017) is £49.50 (concessions £42).

Tickets for all concerts are available from the Brighton Dome Box Office (01273 709709) or https://brightondome.org .

Tickets for those aged 8 – 25 are free as part of the Cavatina scheme. They can be booked by visiting or phoning the Brighton Dome box office. For those concerts taking place at ACCA tickets can also be obtained from the ACCA box office. The appropriate box office will also be open on the morning of the concert. The young person need not be present at the time of booking. Under 14s must be accompanied by a paying adult.
The Cavatina scheme does not cover the guitar concert on 29 January.

MEMBERSHIP
We’d like to thank all those who renewed their membership at the Doric concert and to welcome those who joined for the first time.
If you haven’t renewed your membership for 2016/17, you can do so by downloading a membership form from https://www.stringsattachedmusic.org.uk/friends . Alternatively, you can renew at the next concert. If you aren’t sure whether or not you’ve renewed, email membership@stringsattachedmusic.org.uk .

CLASSICAL MUSIC COURSES
At the 2016 Annual General Meeting members expressed interest in finding out about courses to help with understanding and appreciating chamber music. The committee doesn’t know of any that are appropriate. If members know of any online or local courses, please write to us at info@stringsattached music.org.uk .

OTHER CHAMBER MUSIC EVENTS
Brighton Early Music Festival, affectionately known as BREMF, one of the glories of the Brighton musical year, runs from 28 October to 13 November. Booking is open on https://www.bremf.org.uk .

The chamber music series of concerts run by the Nicholas Yonge Society in Lewes opens on 28 October with the Kuijk Quartet playing Kurtag, Debussy and Smetana. Tickets are available on https://www.nyslewes.org.uk or on the door. An extra attraction this year is that a pre-performance talk will be given at 6.30pm by Chris Darwin, who writes the excellent programme notes for our concerts. Entrance costs £1 at the door but is free to members of the University of the 3rd Age, under whose auspices the talks are given.

Details of concerts at Brighton churches (St Nicholas’, St Luke’s, and the Chapel Royal) and those organised by music societies in Seaford and Steyning, and the Chichester Chamber Concerts can all be accessed via the Strings Attached chamber music calendar. Go to https://www.stringsattachedmusic.org.uk and choose ‘calendar’ from the menu.

Finally, Strings Attached committee member Guy Richardson has written a piece for flute, piano and percussion which will be performed by Riot Ensemble on 29 October at 5.00 pm at St Nicholas’ Church, Dyke Road, Brighton. Tickets on the door. Other Brighton composers have also contributed and none of their pieces lasts more than 90 seconds. No problems for those with short attention spans!