Montpelier Afternoon.

Rehearsal

Thomas Simaku

 Thomas Simaku When Thomas Simaku graduated from the University in Tirana he had a high enough grade to have been immediately employed as a professor. But the government had other ideas and one did not argue with the Hoxha regime. He was sent to Permet, a distant town in south-east Albania, on the border with [...]

working with Jan Philip Schulze

I have been working with the wonderful German pianist Jan Philip Schulze for over ten years, both as co members of Ensemble Triolog, Munich, and giving recitals together. Jan Philip is head of Lied at the Hanover Hochschule, and is equally distinguished as a spectacular solo pianist, chamber musician as for his acclaimed work with [...]

Charles Ives-’The Revival’

PSS with Aaron Shorr-Piano Wilton’s Music Hall June 2008 Engineer: Colin Still (Optic Nerve) The Revival When I first started working with Aaron Shorr, twenty years ago, he was insistent that we play Ives together. I will always be grateful for his intractability on this subject. This is the last movement of Ives’s 3nd Sonata, [...]

Evis Sammoutis at Wiltons

  Today we are delighted to bring the fantastically colourful music of Evis Sammoutis to Wiltons for the first time. We have been working very closely with this wonderfully imaginative Cypriot composer f or the past few years. This has lead to films of his music, performances of his sextet, duos, and solo violin pieces. In [...]

Schubert, Dale Roberts, Penderecki

On the way home after a day working with the inspired young composers at York University. In the middle of the day, a happy return to the rhapsodic revolution of the Polish avantgarde of the 1960′s-performing Penderecki 1 with Lutoslawski. Nicola Lefanu was at the concert, and of course, talk turned to Schubert, much in [...]

Luca Francesconi

Last night, we played Luca Francesconi’s wonderful 1993 Quartet, ‘Mirrors’ at Wiltons. This is one of the most physically uplifting pieces that we play-a work literally teeming with ideas and energy.

Beethoven and Tsar Aleksandr. A Polonaise

One promise too many  Beethoven had little time for Polonaises, and rejected the craze for this dance which swept through Vienna at the time of the 1815 Congress. The most feted composer of this craze was the unjustly forgotten Josep Mayseder, one time violinist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, to whom Beethoven simply referred as ‘the [...]

John McCabe

With John MCabe-Burgh House, 2007 On the 15th June 2011, the Kreutzers will premiere John McCabe’s new Clarinet Quintet with Linda Merrick at the Royal Northern College of Music. This will be followed by further performances and a recording. John McCabe is an inspiration as composer, pianist, and thinker. His violin music is extraordinarily diverse, [...]