19/06/2015
Evening Concert: The Nash Ensemble
Location: Dorset County Museum - Click for map
Time: 7:00pm for 7.30pm
The celebrated Nash Ensemble, resident chamber ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, London are playing at Dorset County Museum for one night only on Friday 19th June at 7.30pm.
The programme consists of:
• Mozart Oboe Quartet in F K 370
• Stravinsky Three Pieces for String Quartet
• Michael Berkeley Oboe Quintet ‘Into the Ravine’
• Ravel String Quartet
The musicians are Gareth Hulse (oboe), Laura Samuel (violin), Annabelle Meare (violin), James Boyd (viola), Adrian Brendel (cello). One of the pieces being played on the night, Oboe Quintet ‘Into the Ravine’, was influenced by paintings, including one given to the composer Michael Berkeley’s father in 1962 by local artist John Craxton, to whom the concert is dedicated. Michael Berkeley and his parents Lennox and Freda Berkeley were close friends of the Craxton family for many years. In 1962 John Craxton commissioned Lennox Berkeley to write an oboe sonata for his sister Janet Craxton the oboeist. In return he gave Lennox a painting of a Greek Ravine, which later was to be the inspiration for ‘Into the Ravine’. In 2012 after the death of John Craxton, Michael Berkeley wrote ‘Into the Ravine’ in memory of the artist.
‘Into the Ravine’ is a melancholy piece beginning with the oboe intoning three plaintive notes around which the strings gradually entwine. The final bars seem to imitate a solitary bird making a final lonely call before taking to the wing and disappearing into the clouds. John Craxton’s work, including the paintings that inspired Michael Berkeley, is on display until 19th September in a temporary exhibition at the Museum, ‘A Poetic Eye: John Craxton on Cranborne Chase and Crete’. Doors will open early at 7.00pm on the night to enable a viewing of this intriguing exhibition before the concert begins. There will be a raffle sponsored by Goldcrest Jewellers and refreshments on the night with all proceeds going to the Collections Development Centre fund at Dorset County Museum. The Museum has been successful in its bid to win £10.3 million of Heritage Lottery Funding but needs to find a further £3 million in match funding.
- Tickets can be bought from Dorset County Museum’s shop or by phone on 01305 756827 and cost £30 each.
About the Nash Ensemble
Chamber Ensemble in Residence at Wigmore Hall, the Nash Ensemble is regarded as a standard-bearer of British music-making around the world and this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. To mark this achievement its founding artistic director, Amelia Freedman, devised a series at Wigmore Hall consisting of repertoire performed to great acclaim including some of the 193 commissions which it has premiered over the past half century. Recent highlights include concerts in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the USA, including a residency at Princeton University. Recent releases include a CD of Hollywood composers for Hyperion, connected to the Ensemble’s highly praised 2013/14 American series at Wigmore Hall; Harrison Birtwistle’s The Moth Requiem for Signum Classics; and a recording of John Tavener’s Russian Folk Songs for NMC. The Ensemble has received two Royal Philharmonic awards “for the breadth of its taste and immaculate performance.”
How to book:
For more information contact the museum shop on 01305 756827 or alternatively by email at shop@dorsetcountymuseum.org