PrettyInScarlett

After a sublime Friday lunchtime concert, Saturday (16th February) got even better. The day started with the February edition of Clitheroe Piano Group, and even more than normal we had an excellent afternoon's music. Quick smart up the M6 to Kendal and a quick meal courtesy of Farmhouse Kitchen (very nice) before we headed to Kendal Leisure Centre. Lakeland Sinfonia seem to have a good set of concerts this season - I tried to book for Jess Gillham in January but sold out - and the February concert, Gabriela Montero and Scottish Ensemble, was definitely a treat. There seem to be a lot of season ticket holders as quite a lot of the audience seemed to know each other; and with a few single ticket holders like us, the hall was pretty full!  Scottish Ensemble are a 12-piece string group, and a quick look at their website shows they are interested in anything strings! Gabriela Montero is renowned for her pianism, improvisations and compositions - certainly one of the draws f

Another new year, another hectic start! However I have found some time for concerts. The January edition of Skipton Music featured trailblazers Chiaroscuro String Quartet . The quartet perform with gut strings but that doesn't mean they're old fashioned! They generally perform standing up and certainly there is a lot of movement and vibrancy in their performances. The programme was: BEETHOVEN     String Quartet in D major Op.18, No. 3 MENDELSSOHN     String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 12 SCHUBERT     String Quartet No.14 in D minor, D810 I have a love/hate relationship with the Schubert 'Death and the Maiden' quartet (much like the Brahms piano quintet) and I have to say I wasn't expecting to enjoy it... but in fact this was the best performance of the evening.   There's another review on the Skipton Music page here .  Just as spring seems to be coming (judging by the bright blue sky outside my window), I have come back from a Leeds Universi

Almost at the Christmas break and hectic as ever! This last week was a two-concerts week (with a Christmas party in the middle) and it was guitars all round. First up, on 11th December, were Gitarrissima of Vienna at Skipton Music . The quintet (reduced to a quartet on Tuesday due to illness) performed A Christmas Celebration - seasonal music and a very jolly evening all round. The group perform on a mixture of concert guitars, an octave guitar and an acoustic bass guitar and the sound is remarkably rounded, not necessarily to be expected for reductions of orchestral pieces. Each set of pieces was introduced by a different member of the group. In a lot of ways, Gitarrissima reminded me of Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain with their clever arrangements of well-known pieces as well as musical excellence. The programme included excerpts (arranged by the group) of Bizet's Carmen , Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, all of which were performed very well but som

Since starting to attend Skipton Music concerts the quality has been very high, but this season seems to have started off exceptionally well. The seasons' concerts are in Christ Church Skipton, as the Town Hall is being refurbished, and the ambience and acoustic are very good.  Catching up from 23rd October, adaptable chamber group Ensemble 360 showcased a contemporary piece by Jörg Widmann alongside its inspiration, Schubert's Octet in F,  D803 . The Widmann, an Octet in five movements, was composed in 2004 and references Schubert rhythmically, and also with leanings towards the many hundred songs that Schubert wrote (third movement Lied ohne Worte ). The first movement, Intrada , felt warmly off-kilter and Lied ohne Worte had a fantastic horn solo. However the piece was not that accessible to listen to. Whilst it certainly got the audience talking I'm not sure that may were big fans. The Schubert Octet was more warmly received and I particularly enjoyed the

Another unusual direction with the lunchtime concerts series at University of Leeds, after austraLYSIS, however this time piano-based.  Nightports is based on a simple but unbreakable rule of restriction: only sounds produced by the featured musician can be used. Nothing else. But these sounds can be transformed, distorted, translated, reworked, processed and reprocessed, stretched, cut, ordered and reordered without limitation. Nightports is about amplifying the characteristics of the featured musician and the sounds they make. Today's concert was the live performance of this album.  The four musicians performed on three (prepared) pianos and electronics. The whole effect was very much contemporary piano to ambient electronics, reminiscent of Hauschka, Nils Frahm, plus Ólafur Arnalds in the more introspective sections. There were breaks for applause but the event felt very much like one journey through different sounds and emotions. The prepared piano aspect of the pe

The first few concerts in the new season of events at University of Leeds School of Music have been incredibly varied. The first concert I saw was from folk band VRi . The string trio performed a mixture of traditional Welsh songs and original compositions. Describing themselves as 'chamber folk', their songs varied from simple voice and accompaniment to foot-tapping energetic numbers (sadly no room for dancing in the Clothworkers' Concert Hall...) exploring Welsh folk but with an art music angle, as well as other folk traditions, with a lot of the music on their new album referencing the Welsh chapel tradition. Absolutely worth a further listen and their music is available on Bandcamp . Fast forward a week to something altogether different. austraLYSIS: Torbjörn Hultmark & Roger Dean with soprano trombone, piano and live electronics. Riveting to watch their live electronics! I really enjoyed the piece about Metamorphosis for Time and Space - dots, lines, ?, v