Journal
Christmas concert in Baarn
December 2016 – News
We played our Christmas concert last Saturday to a full and enthusiastic audience at the Paaskerk in Baarn. For the invitation and the organization: very warm thanks to the phenomenal Kees Koudstaal.
‘Bach’s library’ at Kenardington
November 2015 – News
Last Saturday evening we played the opening concert of a new venture, Saxon Shore Early Music. St Mary’s Church, Kenardington, at the edge of Romney Marsh in Kent, is a wonderful place for chamber music – we were privileged to be the first musicians to play in this series.
‘Bach and before’ at St John’s Downshire Hill
November 2015 – News
We have been wrapping up our ‘Bach and before’ project – concerts in Norwich and London, and then last week the recording sessions for what will be a CD of the music. We had an enthusiastic reception at both concerts, with probably our largest ever audience numbers in these two churches. The photographs taken from the gallery at St John’s Downshire Hill may suggest something of the atmosphere at this outstanding venue.
Sixteen years ago
November 2015 – News
We recently rediscovered this photo of the early Bach Players, at St John’s Wood Parish Church, London, in November 1999.
Jennifer Ward Clarke in conversation
June 2015 – News
Jennifer Ward Clarke – but we can only think of her as Jenny – was a friend and colleague. She was one of the first generation of Baroque players in Britain; at the same time she was a long-term member of the groups that performed new music in this country. Her life and musical career are well described in the obituary by her colleague Duncan Druce.
At The Wallace Collection, London
May 2015 – News
Last Sunday, sharing the platform with the harpsichordist Béatrice Martin, we played works by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. The concert was given in The Wallace Collection, as part of the London Festival of Baroque Music, whose theme this year is ‘Women in Baroque Music’. This was the first time that the LFBM (or its predecessor, the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music), had held a concert at a venue of this kind. All 200 seats had been sold a month in advance. It was wonderful to play surrounded by art of exactly the time of the music and in a space of regal splendour. An edited version of the concert will be broadcast in BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show on 31 May.
At The Octagon Chapel, Norwich
March 2015 – News
Last Saturday we played our ‘Musical offering’ programme at our usual venue in Norwich, The Octagon Chapel, to what must have been our largest audience there – 170 or so people. In the afternoon, Marion Moonen made these photos of Nicolette Moonen, Silas Wollston, and Reiko Ichise rehearsing the Buxtehude sonata.
Jacquet de La Guerre
February 2015 – News
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729) is BBC Radio 3’s ‘Composer of the Week’ next week, starting on 2 March. We are fans of her music, and have recorded one of her trio sonatas on our CD An Italian in Paris. In May we are playing two concerts that feature her work: at the Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands in Surrey on 7 May, and at the London Festival of Baroque Music in the Wallace Collection in London on 17 May.
At Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge
February 2015 – News
Last Friday we played our ‘Musical offering’ programme for Cambridge Early Music at Trinity College Chapel, to a warm and enthusiastic audience. In the afternoon, Marion Moonen made these photos of Nicolette Moonen, Silas Wollston, and Reiko Ichise rehearsing the Buxtehude sonata.
At Burgh House, Hampstead
December 2014 – News
We played our ‘Musical offering’ programme last week in the Music Room at Burgh House, Hampstead, in London. This was a real chamber music experience: every seat in the wood-panelled room was occupied, and the atmosphere was intimate and intense: the music took over. Photos here show the group rehearsing, Silas Wollston explaining his arrangement of the canons in Bach’s work, and the final applause.
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