Cerne Abbas Music Festival - <>

Cerne Abbas Music Festival features chamber music, performed by The Gaudier Ensemble, a group of international musicians, in a beautiful Dorset village.

Published by The Giant Press
http://thegiantpress.co.uk/

TWENTY-SIXTH FESTIVAL

Four days of superb summer music-making

We are delighted to present the twenty-sixth Cerne Abbas Music Festival. Now established as a major musical event in the South West, the Festival hosts The Gaudier Ensemble for four days of chamber music in the wonderful acoustic and intimate surroundings of St. Mary’s Church in the historic village of Cerne Abbas.

The Gaudier Ensemble consists of leading musicians from across Europe. It holds open rehearsals in the church during the Festival week and will perform five concerts featuring music ranging from the Baroque to the 20th Century. The Ensemble was originally named after the French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, following the Ensemble's residency at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, which houses a major archive of the artist’s work. Last year, as well as celebrating the twenty-fifth Festival, we commemorated the centenary of Gaudier-Brzeska’s premature death with a special concert reflecting upon the “Great War”, and with a musical commission.

In this 2016 Festival we are returning to the Baroque and Classical eras, which were so fertile for the chamber music repertoire. This Festival celebrates the intimacy of chamber music and the extraordinary depth of emotion and subtle interplay made possible when musicians work together in small ensembles. For the first time The Gaudier Ensemble performs two of the piano trios by Joseph Haydn, who wrote so prolifically and has sometimes been eclipsed by his successors. In addition to major works by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, we are also playing works by the lesser-known but enchanting composers Andreas Romberg and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Both contemporaries of Mozart, they produced many very fine works. The Festival ends with a Mozart Piano Concerto and Schubert’s justly popular Trout Quintet.

Beyond this marvellous finale, and a very enticing Baroque menu in our opening concert, we hope you will find many reasons to enjoy an evening – or more – in this beautiful Dorset village. We are always looking for ways of encouraging new audiences for chamber music, so we are delighted to offer some tickets at £5 for students and school age children for a range of concerts. If you know of anyone who may be interested in this please do let them know. We are also presenting a Coffee Concert for the first time. This will feature a relaxed and informal programme of enormous variety, with works by Billy Mayerl, Piazzolla, Schubert and Vivaldi. We hope to welcome new audiences as well as our loyal supporters.

Richard Hosford