Newsletter #15 November 2016 – Strings Attached

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

2016/17 COFFEE CONCERT SERIES MOVES TO ACCA

The concert on 23 October by the Heath Quartet was amazing (and I don’t use that word lightly). For reviews of the concert see https://www.stringsattachedmusic.org.uk and choose ‘News and Views’.

The next concert is on Sunday 20 November at 11.00 am in the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA). It will be given by

Olivier Stankiewicz (oboe)
Amy Harman (bassoon)
Tom Poster (piano)

Poulenc Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano, FP 43
Dutilleux Sonata for oboe and piano (1947)
Saint-Saens Sonata for Bassoon and Piano, Op.168

Interval

Schumann 3 Romances, Op.94 (oboe and bassoon)
Jolivet Sonatine for oboe and bassoon (1963)
Francaix Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano

Programme notes by Guy Richardson are available on https://www.stringsattachedmusic.org.uk .

A photo of Tom Poster appears below. Olivier and Amy are equally photogenic but space doesn’t allow for three photos at this point. Tom is well known to people who attend the Lewes Chamber Music Festival as a player of exquisite sensitivity and passion.

COMMENT
An oboe, bassoon and piano concert is unusual for Strings Attached, with not a string to be seen unless you count the piano. So why should we be excited about this concert? Firstly, these instruments make a combination every bit as satisfying as the trio of piano, violin and cello, though different. Secondly, the combination allows us to explore 20th century French music, a field in which string chamber works don’t get us very far. Of the French composers represented in our concert, only Saint-Saens wrote trios for piano, violin and cello. As for Schumann, he wrote for oboe and piano with a lyricism that you don’t often find in his string writing.

The author of this newsletter may be biased because his oboist brother Jeremy Polmear has recorded this very combination of instruments on an Oboe Classics CD called Melodic Lines, which includes the Poulenc trio, and has recorded the Schumann Romances on another Oboe Classics CD called Robert and Clara Schumann, both of which this newsletter recommends without reservation.

PRACTICALITIES

The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), formerly the Gardner Centre, is at the University of Sussex at Falmer. Parking is free. There are excellent public transport links:

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

Car sharing – volunteers needed. Anyone who would find the trip to Falmer by public transport significantly difficult is invited to contact Margaret Polmear on m.polmear@btinternet.com , giving your name and address, so that we can try to organise a lift with another member. Conversely, if you are able to offer a lift there and back to someone in difficulties, please email Margaret with the same details. We won’t match you with someone completely out of your way.

Tickets prices for the coffee concerts are £18.50 (concessions £16). A half-season ticket (for the three in 2017) is £49.50 (concessions £42).

Tickets for all concerts are available from the Brighton Dome Box Office on 01273 709709 or https://brightondome.org and from the Attenborough Centre on 01273 678822 or https://www.attenboroughcentre.com .

Tickets for those aged 8 – 25 are free as part of the Cavatina Scheme. They can only be booked by visiting or phoning either box office. The ACCA box office will 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
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 have renewed but haven’t received a membership card (needed for the interval drinks) either email Christine Moon on c.e.moon@btinternet.com or collect one from the membership desk at the next concert.

If you aren’t sure whether or not you have renewed, email membership@stringsattachedmusic.org.uk .

COURSES ON MUSICAL APPRECIATION
Some members have asked if there are courses they can attend. Strings Attached member Euan Reid has pointed out that the University of the Third Age runs events in Lewes and in and around Brighton. The Brighton courses are more general, see https://u3asites.org.uk/brighton5deans , while the Lewes courses are more specific, currently focusing on Soviet music 1962 – 91, and Thomas Tallis, see http://www.u3asites/lewes .
In Lewes there are also talks with performance (on comparing English and French composers, on French and Russian music and on American music). In addition, Chris Darwin lectures before the Nicholas Yonge concerts (see below).

OTHER CHAMBER MUSIC EVENTS
Brighton Early Music Festival continues until 13 November. Booking is open on https://www.bremf.org.uk/ . Of special interest to Strings Attached members is the concert by the Trio Goya (piano, violin and cello) on 13 November at 2.30 pm at Ralli Hall, Hove. They will play Haydn, Beethoven and Diabelli.

The next concert run by the Nicholas Yonge Society in Lewes features the Notos Piano Quartet playing Brahms, Mozart and Walton on 2 December at 7.45 pm. Tickets are available on http://www.nyslewes.org.uk or on the door. At 6.30 pm Chris Darwin will give a pre-performance talk on the music to be played, free to students of the University of the Third Age who have signed up for the course. For the rest of us it’s £1 a time. Judging from his first talk it’s worth every penny. Possibly even better than his programme notes; or is that impossible?

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.