PRESS RELEASE – MUSIC TO YOUR EARS SPRING 2012

The forty fifth issue of Music to Your Ears, “the Music Guide for Warwick, Leamington Spa and beyond” is now in circulation and carries details of some 75 concerts between now and mid May.

Chamber music is the most numerous of the ingredients listed, with string quartets to the fore.  The Coull Quartet, Resident at Warwick University since 1977, starts it off on 13 January in the Helen Martin Studio at the Arts Centre, where it returns on 27 April.  However their most intriguing offering is on 3 March when the Arts Centre will witness the premiere of PING!, a new work for string quartet and table tennis players by Joe Cutler, until recently a resident of Leamington Spa and one of the 20 works commissioned for the Olympics.  The first of these took place at midnight on 1 January, when Howard Skempton, who has lived in Leamington for many years, had his Five Rings Triple premiered on Radio 3.

BBC Radio 3 will be back in Leamington and Warwick to record the Heath Quartet and Doric Quartet on 27 January and 5 February as part of the Leamington Music winter season and there are further quartet concerts by the Martinu, Barbirolli, Fitzwilliam, Badke and Elias Quartets in that season and then the Leamington Music Festival Weekend (4-8 May).

Other chamber concerts range widely with the Lawson Piano Trio (15 January), pianist Richard Uttley (22 January), soprano Felicity Wright (11 February) Ensemble 360 (12 February), Caroline Jones on recorder (25 February), the Ludwig String Trio in Warwick and Madeleine Mitchell violin in Stratford (26 February), Elizabeth Tebby Germaine (10 March), the Calefax Reed Quintet from Holland in Warwick and the Galitzin Quartet in Stratford (18 March), Jeremy Ballard violin (5 May) and pianist John Lill opening the new Music in Leamington Hastings season (12 May).

Orchestral provision in this area is divided between professionals like the Orchestra of the Swan (21 February with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, 13 March with clarinettist Emma Johnson and 8 May with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor), amateur groups like Oriflamme Ensemble (14 January and 25 March), Beauchamp Sinfonietta (28 and 29 January and 28 and 29 April), Leamington Chamber Orchestra (26 February), Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra (3 March with violinist Ruth Palmer and 19 May), North Warwickshire Chamber Orchestra (10 March) and Leamington Sinfonia (17 March) and youth orchestras.  The latter in the shape of the Spires Youth Orchestra kicked the New Year off on 3 January and will be back again on 7 and 14 April and there are two concerts from the City of Coventry Youth Orchestra (12 February and 13 May).

Armonico Consort launches the choral contribution big time on 28 January with Supersize Polyphony and follows up with a complementary workshop on 3 March.  On the same day, the Saint Michael’s Singers celebrate the 80^th anniversary of Coventry Methodist Central Hall and the Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir sings Requiems by Bob Chilcott and Howard Goodall.  On 10 March the City of Coventry Male Voice Choir has a thirtieth anniversary concert for Myton Hospice and on 17 March there are three choral concerts, Divertimento and the Royal Naval Association Male Voice Choir in Leamington and the three Choirs of St Mary’s in Warwick.  The following Saturday 24 March there are there more choral concerts involving the Saint James’s Singers, Warwick & Kenilworth Choral Society and Stratford Upon Avon Choral Society.  Most choral concerts involving amateur choirs take place on Saturdays, so the King’s High School riand Warwick School Diamond Jubilee Concert on Tuesday 27 March and the Armonico Consort concert of Thursday 29 March of Vivaldi and Scarlatti - again involving the star violinist Nicola Benedetti - are to be welcomed.

As Easter approaches there is a Come and Sing Messiah and Collegium offering Dvorak and Faure on 31 March and for Good Friday, 6 April, Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Coventry Cathedral.  A pause for breathe after Easter and then Diatonic on 28 April, The Stour Singers on 5 May and the Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir on 19 May offer further, varied fare.

Warwick has long been recognised as a major centre for early music, with St Mary’s Church at the centre and it will host the London Handel Players, flying in from their first American tour (31 January), an evening of arias and duos from Handel’s operas (14 February) and Stile Antico (13 March), just prior to their next American tour.

All the details are on the Music to Your Ears website www.musictoyourears.org.uk and the next issue will be out in April to cover the months May to September.  The Warwick District Music Promoters Forum, which also runs an anti-clash diary which has dates going into 2014, is grant-aided by Warwick District Council.

This press release has been compiled by Richard Phillips, to whom further enquiries should be made and who is happy to post hard copies of the MTYE leaflet to those who make contact.  Call 01926 497000 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it