Join the Philharmonia Chamber Players for an enchanting evening of music by Turina and Ravel at the Royal Festival Hall on Thursday, 14 November 2024, at 6pm. This special small-ensemble performance is a unique opportunity to experience the mastery of four Philharmonia string players as they present a free concert featuring Turina's "La oración del torero" and Ravel's celebrated "String Quartet."

The event showcases the talents of Rebecca Chan and David López Ibáñez on violin, Sylvain Séailles on viola, and Ella Rundle on cello. Together, they will navigate the lively, lyrical, and contemplative passages of Ravel's masterpiece, a work that demands great technical and expressive skill. This performance is an excellent introduction to French music for newcomers, highlighting the beauty and complexity of the chamber music repertoire.

In addition to Ravel's work, the audience will be treated to Turina's "The Bullfighter’s Prayer," a piece inspired by the composer's experience at a bullfighting event in Madrid. This composition blends the influences of Debussy and Ravel with a distinctive Spanish, folkloric flavor, offering a vivid musical portrayal of a toreador's prayer before entering the arena.

This event is free, but tickets are required. Priority booking is available for Friends of the Philharmonia, with general booking opening at 10am on Tuesday, 23 April. The performance is expected to run for approximately 35 minutes and is recommended for audiences aged 7 and up. Free printed programmes will be available at the venue to enhance your concert experience.

Don't miss this opportunity to immerse yourself in the exquisite sounds of Turina and Ravel, performed by the talented Philharmonia Chamber Players. Reserve your tickets now and prepare for an unforgettable musical journey at the Royal Festival Hall.

Philharmonia Chamber Players: Turina and Ravel

Royal Festival Hall

Opera Holland Park Inspire is pleased to introduce a series of community concerts at various venues across the borough. These hour long concerts are relaxed performances and dementia-friendly, providing an hour of joy through music to promote the benefits of musical and social engagement. We believe that high quality music should be accessible to all and so we offer these concerts free of charge.

EPSG:4326

Inspire Community Concert

St Peter's Church, Notting Hill

St Mary Abbots Church

María Dueñas won the Menuhin Violin Competition in 2021, aged just 18. Since then she has gathered rave reviews and a devoted global fanbase, and she ‘held the audience in the palm of her hand’ (The Guardian) in her BBC Proms debut in 2023. Hear her in Sibelius’s expressive and deeply personal Violin Concerto, one of the undisputed pinnacles of the violin repertoire.

María Dueñas plays Sibelius

Southbank Centre

Join musicians from the Royal Academy of Music as they present an informal concert for people living with dementia and their friends, family and carers. You are warmly invited to join us for tea and coffee from 2.30pm.

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Chamber music forms a significant and forward-looking part of Fauré’s output. Responsible for this part of the Wigmore’s centenary commemoration, the composer’s devoted cellist champion opens this intensive segment of exploration with two major works placed alongside one by Fauré’s close friend and teacher Saint-Saëns, and another by his own pupil and friend, Nadia Boulanger.

Steven Isserlis cello; Joshua Bell violin; Irène Duval violin; Blythe Teh Engstroem viola; Jeremy Denk piano; Connie Shih piano

A French ensemble that launched in 2013 and which takes its name from a character in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has seen its star steadily rise, particularly with its period as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists (2017-9). In 2023 its members starred in Bruno Monsaingeon’s documentary about their collaboration entitled Ménage à Quatre.

Quatuor Arod

In 1895 Georges Enescu moved to Paris to study at the Conservatoire, where one of his teachers was Fauré; his 1899 Second Violin Sonata partakes of this new French manner. Fauré’s First Cello Sonata was launched in 1917. A late work, the Piano Trio was first heard in 1923 and quickly taken up by the celebrated trio of Cortot, Thibaud and Casals. Ravel’s 1903 String Quartet was dedicated to his teacher Fauré.

Steven Isserlis cello; Joshua Bell violin; Irène Duval violin; Jeremy Denk piano; Connie Shih piano; Quatuor Agate

The Trio Chagall returns to Wigmore Hall following its recent tour of the UK. Winners of the Schoenfeld International String Competition in September 2023, the Trio is involved in concert activity across Europe, most notably in Italy where it frequently performs in prestigious venues throughout the country.

Trio Chagall

In this celebration of the small-scale, we hear miniatures from Britten, Arnold and Finzi and a tiny Suite de Ballet by Vaughan Williams. A selection of Elgar’s vivid and highly successful salon pieces completes the programme.

Nash Ensemble

This clutch of British compositions juxtaposes instrumental music by the young Vaughan Williams from 1912 with Elgar’s final chamber piece of 1919. Between them we hear George Butterworth’s atmospheric cycle for voice and string quartet, and folksongs arranged by Roderick Williams for the same forces.

Nash Ensemble; Roderick Williams baritone

Three 20th-century works prominently featuring the oboe. Martinů’s Quartet was composed in New York in 1947. Poulenc’s delightful duo Sonata (1962) was his final work, described by a New York Times critic as ‘a paradoxical mix of the elegiac, the suave and the clever’; the composer dedicated it to the memory of Prokofiev, the material of whose 1924 Quintet largely derives from his ballet, Trapeze.

Olivier Stankiewicz oboe; Christopher Richards clarinet; Liza Ferschtman violin; Hélène Clément viola; Tim Posner cello; Will Duerden double bass; Alasdair Beatson piano

Czech music unsurprisingly provides one of the central foundations of the ensemble’s repertoire, with its recordings of Dvořák receiving high praise. Cypresses is the name of a collection of poems by Gustav Pfleger Moravský, 18 of which Dvořák set as songs in 1865; 22 years later he selected 12 of them to arrange for string quartet.

Pavel Haas Quartet

Three acclaimed musicians, each a top-ranking soloist in their own right, come together to perform beloved works from the piano trio repertoire, selecting both of Schubert’s large-scale examples, written during the final two years of his brief life. The second includes a slow movement of particular poignancy, based on a Swedish folksong.

Hilary Hahn violin; Gautier Capuçon cello; Rudolf Buchbinder piano

Since his debut with the Jerusalem Symphony at the age of 10, the outstanding American violinist has enjoyed an extraordinary career. A winner of multiple awards – including a Grammy – he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, followed in 2008 by the Avery Fisher Prize, while in 2012 Musical America named him Instrumentalist of the Year.

Gil Shaham violin

The Paddington Trio is presented today by The Parkhouse Award, which the ensemble won in 2023 at Wigmore Hall having impressed the distinguished jury with its energetic communication, imaginative programming and refined ensemble playing.

Paddington Trio

The two leading musicians resume a partnership that has seen them acclaimed on disc in music by Britten, Shostakovich and Schnittke, as well as Chopin and Alkan: ‘both performances from this outstanding partnership are out of the top drawer, fresh and spontaneous’, said the critic of Gramophone of the latter.

Alban Gerhardt cello; Steven Osborne piano

‘The standard is absolutely higher than brass playing has ever been before’, said trumpet virtuoso Alison Balsam, speaking of an ensemble that celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Among the highlights in the programme is a new piece by Roxanna Panufnik, who in May 2023 won a notable success with her contribution to the music at the Coronation of King Charles III.

Septura

Described by János Starker as ‘an exceptionally gifted young cellist’, Ildikó Szabó has won prizes in some 16 international competitions, including eight at the 2014 Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in Budapest. In the words of cellist/conductor Wolfgang Schmidt, ‘her technique is impeccable, her sound warm and flexible, and she feels at home in all musical styles from Baroque to contemporary.’

Ildikó Szabó cello; István Lajkó piano

Formed in Berlin, Germany in 2003 by Annette von Hehn (violin), Thomas Hoppe (piano) and Stefan Heinemeyer (cello), the ATOS Trio has established itself as one of the finest piano trios performing before the public today. Its programme includes the first chamber work Brahms deemed fit to publish, and Bonis's work dedicated to Jean Gounod, of which Saint-Saëns remarked, 'She knows all the clever tricks of the composer's trade'.

Bonis and Brahms

In this latest instalment of the ensemble’s exploration of chamber works by Shostakovich and Weinberg, we hear the Tenth Quartet (1964) of the former and the Eleventh (1965-6) of the latter, alongside his early (1944) Piano Quintet.

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