Latest News From Keswick MUSIC SOCIETY
NEWS FEBRUARY – MARCH 2023
After our successful autumn/winter series of 4 concerts at St. John’s Church Keswick, the second half of the 2022-23 season began on February 14th at Theatre by the Lake with an unusual ensemble – violin and guitar.
Harriet Mackenzie (violin) a multi-faceted virtuoso with “captivating, searing intensity and full of panache” (The Strad) and James Boyd (guitar), one of the finest classical guitarists playing today. Long ago awarded the Julian Bream prize, by Bream himself, in recognition of this extraordinary talent. Together, these two outstanding international musicians performed a variety of arrangements and original works for violin and guitar including music by : JS Bach, Paganini, Barrios, de Falla, Piazzolla.
Next, on March 14th, we heard a performance by BELLA TROMBA, a brilliant all-female trumpet quartet! This exciting group perform chamber music extensively across the UK and abroad. They played dazzling original works`and exciting arrangements of music from the Baroque to the 20th century, including music by Monteverdi, Bizet, Satie, Imogen Holst and Clara Schumann.
NEWS OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2022
Keswick Music Society can now announce the new 2022-23 season, a season of two halves.
Under their new arrangements, the Theatre by the Lake cannot give us our usual range of dates and days of the week from September to April, so we will hold the concerts in the first part of our season at St. John’s Church, Keswick, which has excellent acoustics for music. As it’s where our Steinway piano is now kept, these concerts will tend to involve the piano. Tickets will be available online from Theatre by the Lake www.theatrebythelake.com, or from the Box Office 017687 74411 or in person, or on the evening at the door of St. John’s Church.
We will then have 4 Tuesday concerts at Theatre by the Lake on February 14th, March 14th, May 9th and June 6th. These will be bookable from the Theatre Box Office or online as normal.
For details of the St. John’s concerts and of the concerts at the Theatre see Our Concerts and Upcoming Concerts.
News May 2022
On May 14th, we were back at Theatre by the Lake, with our first concert there since 2020! This was a magical evening: a succession of wonderful arias by composers from Purcell to Sondheim, chosen to tell a complex operatic story of love, dance, loss and harmony and performed by world-class singers with a virtuosic string quintet playing the orchestral music cleverly arranged for string quintet by their director Orlando Jopling – also the cellist.
The four characters suffered and triumphed through a riot of Italian opera and hits from the musicals, from four centuries of great dramatic music … wit, passion, comedy, tragedy … as in opera, all life was there. The audience, many of them Members of the Society, loved it – see the review on the Reviews Page.
This was the last concert of the Keswick Music Society’s 2021-2022 season. After Covid we are still looking for a permanent venue, and hoping to be able to return to Theatre by the Lake. We will be announcing our new 2022-2023 programme and our new plans as soon as possible.
News March – April 2022
After our March 5th violin and piano duo concert, the next concert will be on April 23rd given by the wind ensemble Festivo, also at St. John’s, Keswick. They have a carefully thought-out programme of music: Milhaud depicting mediaeval scenes contrasting with Hindemith and Shostakovich, then Faure, Nielsen and Piazzola.
Festivo Winds are a dynamic Wind Quintet based in Manchester and London, formed in 2017 at the Royal Northern College of Music. They specialise in the core repertoire for wind quintet and have performed at a number of prestigious venues such as the Buxton International Festival, Manchester Chamber Concerts Society, Lake District Summer Music International Festival, at numerous venues across the UK.
Festivo Winds has performed over 20 new compositions to date at major venues and events including the Bridgewater Hall, and in February 2019, the group performed as a live art exhibition at the opening of a brand new collaboration with Yoko Ono at Leeds Art University. Individually distinguished, the members have performed with esteemed ensembles including the Hallé Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal National Scottish Orchestra and Australian Opera.
News and Updates March – April – May – 2022
At last some more concerts! On Saturday March 5th at 7.30pm at St. John’s Keswick Sophie Rosa, violin, and Ian Buckle, piano, young and dynamic musicians with a growing reputation, will play a very varied programme for violin and piano duo: sonatas by Schumann, Beethoven (The Spring), and the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov – and, at its centre, a selection of pieces by English composers.
We look forward very much to seeing our members again. Tickets (£15) can be bought at Bookends or on the door (correct change much appreciated!). Covid restrictions will be relaxed by then, but we hope that by showing consideration we can enable everyone to feel comfortable.
Then, briefly, the following month, on April 23rd, the wind ensemble Festivo Winds will be performing, also at St. John’s, and in May we will at last be back at Theatre by the Lake for an unusual (for us) concert, for which tickets will soon be on sale from the Box Office. We will present an evening of Opera Highlights at the Theatre, informally staged to make a narrative that connects the music, performed by four world-class singers and five fine chamber musicians. The evening includes arias and ensembles by Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Bernstein with some other surprises and unusual gems.
We hope that by early summer we will be able to restart our Membership Scheme.