programme 2025

The Felix Ensemble

Strauss Metamorphosen, Septet arr

(Interval)

Shostakovich Piano Quintet

Followed by ‘Meet the musicians after the concert “

Tickets £20/18/15

Our opening concert presents two powerful works that explore themes of transformation and resilience—fittingly marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the 20th century’s most profound musical voices. Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, performed in an intimate septet arrangement, offers a moving reflection on cultural devastation and personal loss.

Composed during the final months of World War II, the work is often interpreted as Strauss’s elegy for a destroyed Europe—particularly the artistic and human values he saw being lost in the chaos. In contrast, Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, one of his most celebrated chamber works, combines vibrant energy with poignant introspection, blending humour and melancholy in a complex and compelling dialogue between piano and strings. Together, these pieces evoke both the turmoil and the hope that emerge from moments of great personal and societal upheaval, creating a captivating evening of musical depth and expression.

The Hermes Experiment

Music by Caroline Shaw, Errollyn Wallen, Laura Moody, Abel Selaocoe, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre & more…

Panel discussion: ‘Music & Science’ with climate scientist Frank Venmans + Musicians 

Tickets: £20/18

This Autumn the Hermes Experiment launch TREE, their third album with Delphian Records. The album is a meditation on nature, memory and change. Commissioned works by Laura Moody and Abel Selaocoe, and a vivid reimagining of a work by the baroque composer Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre are complemented by new compositions from the ensemble’s members, exploring the human instinct to find emotional meaning in the natural world – in birdsong, trees, storms, stars. With its distinctive line-up of clarinet, harp, voice and double bass, the ensemble creates a soundscape by turns intimate, luminous, virtuosic and strange.

Panel Discussion: Music & Science

Join us at the start of the concert, for a thought-provoking panel discussion on Music and Nature, featuring renowned climate scientist Professor Frank Venmans. This event examines the intricate connections between climate change, forest growth, and biodiversity, exploring both the roots of the crisis and pathways toward meaningful solutions. We’ll also delve into how musicians are responding to environmental challenges, using their art to interpret the natural world through programmatic themes that inspire climate consciousness. Discover how music can amplify ecological awareness and serve as a powerful voice in shaping the conversation about our planet’s future.

Apollo’s Cabinet 

Baroque music by Handel, Locatelli, Telemann, Purcell, Bach and a new commission ‘Elements’ by Orlando Gough, all performed on period instruments.

*Meet the musicians after the concert

Tickets: £20/18/15

Elements explores the splendour and ferocity of the four elements when driven to their extremes by mankind. Each element is represented in an evocative suite, using two main works – Rebel’s “Les Elemens” and Destouches/Delalandes “Les Elements” as the pillars of each suite, interspersed with other composers’ ideas on how to depict the elements musically and tied together through poetry. These suites capture the beauty of the planet we live on, but also how climate change affects and endangers it and pushes it to its limits. They have commissioned British composer Orlando Gough to write five new compositions – one for each of the four elements plus a final piece on the effects the fifth element- humanity – has on our planet. The programme will be premiered in London in Autumn 2025 and subsequently performed in the UK and France. 

Rautio Piano Trio & Narrator Oliver Beamish

Sally Beamish ‘Seafarer’ (2000)

Beethoven ‘Kakadu’ Variations Op. 121a

Bach Passacaglia & Fugue in C min BWV 582 (transcribed J. Rautio)

‘Artists in Conversation: Short talk and Q & A with Sally Beamish + Musicians 

Tickets: £20/18 

Our final concert pairs two works that explore the depths of human experience through contrasting musical landscapes. Sally Beamish’s Seafarer, inspired by the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (translated by Charles Harrison Wallace), weaves together the voice of the narrator and a piano trio to reflect on the journey of a hero confronting the trials of the sea and life’s challenges. The piece evokes the harsh isolation and internal struggles faced by the protagonist, blending elements of the seafaring tradition with the larger themes of fate, bravery, and mortality found in the ancient epic.

This programme is further enriched by Beethoven’s Kakadu Variations for piano trio, which transform a charming folk tune through a sophisticated and inventive interplay of thematic development, alongside Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, as transcribed by Jan Rautio, offering a monumental and introspective meditation on musical form and expression.

Sally Beamish was born in London. She began her career as a viola player with the Raphael Ensemble, Academy of St Martins and London Sinfonietta, before moving to Scotland in 1990 to focus on composition. She was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2015, and of the Royal Swedish Academy in 2022. In 2018 she won the Award for Inspiration at the British Composer Awards, and in 2020 was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours.

She has written three major oratorios. Knotgrass Elegy (text by Donald Goodbrand Saunders) was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chorus in the BBC Proms 2001, and has recently been named in BBC Music Magazine as one of the top 6 oratorios of the 20th and 21st century. Equal Voices (text by Sir Andrew Motion) was premiered by the LSO with Gianandrea Noseda in 2014. The Judas Passion (text by David Harsent) was commissioned by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and premiered in the UK and USA in 2018.