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The Primrose Piano Quartet
For more information go to www.primrosepianoquartet.org.uk
London Harpsichord Ensemble A real treat for Baroque music fans! The London Harpsichord Ensemble (flautist Graham Mayger, oboist and leader Sarah Francis, violinist Frances Mason, cellist Margaret Powell and harpsichordist Ian Clarke) have a mixture of Italian and German music in their programme. Bach (whose sonata for violin and harpsichord and trio sonata in G for flute, violin and continuo are part of the programme) perhaps needs little introduction, and Vivaldi hardly more, though his concerto for flute, oboe, violin and continuo is not amongst his best-known works (though tailor-made for tonight’s musical forces). Telemann’s Tafelmusik represents the composer’s versatility and skill in writing music for chamber performance, but J J Quantz ’s contribution to music was compositional and technical; he was both a noted player and builder of flutes, and added several improvements to the design of the instrument which are still used today. For further information, visit www.impulse-music.co.uk/lhe.htm
Piatti String Quartet The Piatti Quartet, inaugural Winner of the St Martin's Chamber Music Competition 2010 in partnership with Making Music, bring three quartets written by masters of the genre for their Luton concert. Firstly, Haydn’s Emperor quartet, which is so called from the use of the German National Anthem in the second movement (which had just been written at the time), which leads to Smetana’s From my Life, in which the composer expresses his distress over his impending deafness, and Beethoven’s Harp quartet, so-named by his publisher because the plucked strings in the first movement put him in mind of the harp! The Piatti Quartet have won an enviable string of awards, and are fast becoming one of the few UK quartets to have an international reputation. Their performances on the concert platform complement their recorded output in finding neglected masterpieces from the past, and offering delightful interpretations of the mainstream string quartet repetoire. This concert is supported by Making Music. For further information, visit www.piattiquartet.com
Aurora Ensemble The Aurora Ensemble (their picture tells you their instrumentation) have embellished the international concert scene since 1996, and combined their performances with a keen participation in educational events; they run their own workshops for schools (Sounds Exciting), and for grown-ups in association with Hawkwood College. Their Luton programme offers themes and contrasts: two composers from early-Classical Germany, two twentieth-century composers (one French, one American), and a Brazilian composer who has found fame as a conductor (Barbirolli’s assistant), film composer, and was a co-student of Stockhausen’s with Frank Zappa! For further information, visit www.auroraensemble.com
Sam Haywood What a stir Sam Haywood caused the last time he came to Luton! At the risk of repeating last year’s encomium, the list of his teachers makes you realise that they saw the value in him that we can appreciate. His reappearance for this season gives him the opportunity to present his own chosen programme celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of another great piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt. He traces the pianistic, emotional and compositional developments from Schubert’s Impromptus to Liszt’s ground (and finger-breaking!) B minor sonata, via Listzt’s arrangements of two of Schubert’s beautiful songs. A concert not to be missed, for piano enthusiasts, singers, and Romantics! For further information, visit www.samhaywood.com
Philip Higham (cello) and Nicola Eimer (piano) Both Philip Higham and Nicola Eimer bring a wealth of experience of solo, chamber and concerto experience to Luton, allied to glittering careers on the competitive platform (selecting at random from long lists of successes, a first prize in the Royal Oversea’s League competition for Nicola, and a first prize for Philip in the Lutoslawski competition in Warsaw. Their programme for Luton includes the first of the Bach solo cello suites (these pieces are something of a speciality for Mr
Higham - “breathtakingly accomplished and moving,” in the opinion of one reviewer. Then Liszt’s Romance Oubliée, a piece
with a chequered history; it started life as a song, then it was reconfigured as a piano solo, and later was arranged at various times for violin, viola or cello solo.. The only reason many music-lovers have heard at all of the arpeggione (a six-stringed bowed and fretted instrument) is thanks to the continuing popularity of Schubert’s sonata for it. In the version we are to hear, the work has been rearranged for cello and piano. Lastly, Rachmaninov’s sonata for cello and piano, a work of his early maturity, showing a flair for chamber music that his skill as a composer of concerti and as a soloist sometimes obscured. Rachmaninov felt that in this piece neither player should predominate, but each is to contribute equally to the music. For further information, visit www.ycat.co.uk/philip-higham and www.nicolaeimer.com
Symphonia Academica This concert is part of the University of Bedfordshire Concert Series
For further information, visit www.symphonia-academica.weebly.com
Mark Stone (baritone) and Stephen Barlow (piano)
To mark Remembrance Sunday (yesterday) we have arranged a wonderful concert of English songs centred on settings by George Butterworth and C W Orr of poems from A E Housman’s immortal and moving A Shropshire Lad. As a contrast the concert will include Vaughan Williams’ popular Songs of Travel and Roger Quilter’s delightful To Julia, settings of poems by Robert Herrick. To perform these we bring one of the finest young singers of the day, Mark Stone, and his equally accomplished pianist, the composer Stephen Barlow. Classic FM Magazine said of their Butterworth CD “Stone is a fine singer with a big burnished operatic voice that is also silky and subtle; he and pianist Stephen Barlow possess the musical imagination to hold the listener’s attention...”
Roger Quilter was another composer fascinated by the song-writer’s craft,and who was part of the flowering of British music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His compositional career was sadly shortened by ill-health, but his songs and light music are still remembered with affection. For further information, visit www.markstone.info
Kreutzer String Quartet with Linda Merrick (clarinet)
For more information go to www.divine-art.co.uk/AS//kreutzerqt.htm, www.johnmccabe.com and www.lindamerrickonline.com
Cantabile
For more information, go to www.cantabile.com
Pantagruel
For more information, visit www.pantagruel.de (the site is available in English!).
Hannah Marcinowicz (saxophone) and John Reid (piano)
For more information go to www.hannahsax.com and www.johnreidpiano.com
Galeazzi Ensemble Imagine yourselves in a palace in 18th century Vienna listening to elegant and entertaining music expertly performed by a flautist and three string players. The Library Theatre may not be a palace but the music will be just as the aristocratic Austrian connoisseurs would have heard it. The Galeazzi Ensemble was formed for the very purpose of recreating this refreshing and witty repertoire, delving into works by less renowned composers than Haydn and Mozart, inevitably the foundation of their programmes. Their Luton concert does indeed concentrate on these two masters with quartets for flute and strings, including two arrangements of Haydn string quartets. There are also string trios by Bach, arranged by Mozart, and the less well-known Dittersdorf. An enchanting and relaxing evening is promised! For more information go to www.galeazziensemble.co.uk
Eleanor Turner (harp) and Alan Thomas (guitar) Alan Thomas, an American guitarist with an international reputation, joins Eleanor Turner in her return to Luton; regular patrons of Music on Mondays will remember with particular pleasure the concert she gave here last year with cellist Rowena Calvert. For this concert, the artists are bringing us a wide spread of musical genres: there will be Bach lute music arranged by the artists, Spanish music from Rodrigo and Falla, folk music from Slovenia and Scotland, again arranged by the players, and including some amount of modern instrumentation in the performances. Alan Thomas is now based in the UK, where his activities as a concerto and chamber soloist, broadcaster, teacher and composer have brought him to the fore, and demand for his services takes him all over Europe and the United States, to concert halls, festivals, and seats of learning. For further information go to www.eleanorturner.com and www.alanthomas-guitar.com
Gould Piano Trio
For further information go to www.gouldpianotrio.com
Andrew Zolinsky (piano)
Madeleine Mitchell (violin) and Andrew Ball (piano)
For more information go to www.classical-artists.com/madeleinemitchell
Sacconi String Quartet
For the Luton concert the Quartet will play Haydn’s Quartet in C, Mozart’s Quartet in D and Dvořák’s American Quartet, always a favourite with audiences on account of its syncopated themes suggesting Negro spirituals. For further information, visit www.sacconi.com
Judith Hall (flute) and Craig Ogden (guitar)
For more information go to www.mbam.co.uk
The Lawson Trio
For further information go to www.lawsontrio.com
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The superb Primroses return to Luton, bringing us an exciting start to the new season with a
Beethoven piano quartet which was first written for piano and wind quintet, and recast by the composer for strings and piano. For the next item, the pianist John Thwaites rests while the
string players play the Dohnanyi Serenade for String Trio. The musicians then combine forces to play Frank Bridge’s Phantasy Quartet, and the concert will finish in fine style with
Schumann’s Piano Quartet - a worthy favourite with chamber music fans everywhere.
Bedfordshire’s own professional chamber orchestra returns for its annual slot in the Music on Mondays season with music by
Bach, Bridge and the orchestra’s composer-in-association, Richard Sisson, and featuring baritone Roderick Williams. The
orchestra needs no introduction to Luton audiences by now but on this occasion is joined by three guest soloists to be announced. The programme opens with Bach’s sublime cantata Ich habe genug followed by his Double Violin Concerto, one of
the most popular works in the concerto repertoire. The second half brings Richard Sisson’s own concerto for two violins, a
brand new work which will be receiving its premiere at the concert. In the two concertos Peter Bussereau, the Symphonia’s
director, will be joined by a guest soloist. Finally you can hear some of Frank Bridge’s delightful songs, orchestrated by the Symphonia’s conductor David Beaman.
A Concert for RemembranceSunday
Some of tonight’s composers are not well-known: in particular C W Orr, whose principal musical interest was in the setting of
poetry (particularly A E Housman) for the solo voice, a life-long enthusiasm which started in childhood, inspired by encountering the German Lieder tradition and determining to be a song-writer as a result.
Not many of the artists featured in Luton Music presentations have their own fan club, but Cantabile (The London Quartet)
have! This accolade must partly come to them for their innate musicianship, both as performers and interpreters of music
from the past five hundred years, but also because of the range of their repetoire: the programme for November 28th takes us
from Elizabethan England to contemporary Britain, via Europe and the centuries between, in styles that range from the serious
to the frivolous. The experience they bring to the stage, ranging from opera and musicals to jazz and a serious dedication to comedy guarantees a sparkling finish to the end of the first half of the season.
Since their formation in 2002, Pantagruel have been delighting audiences across Europe with their semi-staged performances
of Elizabethan and Jacobean music. Take the Danish soprano Anna Maria Wierød, whose extraordinary voice effortlessly
drifts from the purity and sweetness expected of an early music specialist to a gutsy, almost folky rawness and add the
citterns, gitterns, lutes and flutes wielded with masterly virtuosity and wit in cunning medleys devised by the ensemble (which
includes Paulina van Laarhoven and Mark Wheeler), and you are set for an experience of the most intimate and seductive
kind. Their programme for Luton – two days before Burns Night – consists of ballads, ayres and dances from 17th century Scotland.
This Star-in-the-Making sax player won all hearts at her first appearance for Luton Music in February 2010 as one of
the winners of Making Music’s Award for Young Concert Artists. Such was her appeal to the audience that we felt that
a return visit was essential and so, two years later, here she is. The saxophone family (for there are more than one!)
lends itself to a range of music from arrangements of baroque pieces to 20th-century classics to jazz and swing. Hannah
and her pianist John Reid have not yet determined on their programme but it will certainly be varied and enormously entertaining. 
The list of artists with whom John Reid has worked reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary performers, whether they be
singers or instrumentalists. He has won numerous prizes, and even the Queen’s Commendation for Excellence! He is now an
associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and can be heard regularly on Radio 3, both as a Proms performer and in series such as the Genius of Mozart.
This long-established trio of master musicians is one of the finest ensembles in the land. Their strong, passionate and at the
same time delicate performances have captivated audiences and critics alike. All three players – Lucy Gould on violin, Alice
Neary on cello and Ben Frith on piano – are soloists in their own right. Their warm and relaxed personalities have endeared
them to audiences everywhere, creating a perfect stage atmosphere for the enjoyment of their masterly interpretations of great music. For us they will play Beethoven’s delightfully whimsical Kakadu Variations, Dvóŕak’s B flat Trio and Shostakovich’s
second trio, one of the great 20th century works in this repertoire.
One of the most dazzling pianists on the UK scene today, Andrew is a keyboard phenomenon, guaranteed to set the audience
pulses racing in a wide range of music. He will be playing one of Schubert’s wonderful sonatas, followed by Ravel’s incredibly difficult Gaspard de la nuit. A sequence of Rachmaninov preludes dominates the second half of the concert,
ending with the same composer’s brilliant transcription of the scherzo from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream incidental music. This concert will be an absolute must for all lovers of piano music.
A duo of exceptional brilliance, Madeleine and Andrew have given some of the finest violin-and-piano recitals in Britain
today and indeed abroad. Madeline, indeed, has played as soloist in over 40 countries and is regarded as one of the UK’s most celebrated players. Wonderfully accomplished, she is
noted for her irreproachably sensitive performances. She and Andrew are also known for their wide and often unusual repertoire and for their engaging spoken introductions to the
music they play. Their programme is entitled Violin Songs and includes the first sonata by Gabriel Fauré and several short gems by Elgar (the ever-popular Chanson de nuit and Chanson de matin), Frank Bridge, Schubert (Ave Maria) , Prokofiev, Ravel, Lili Boulanger
and Alban Berg – a delightfully varied sequence of discoveries for all. 
“The festival sensation, the Sacconi Quartet completely bowled over a packed audience. The chemistry between these four
players is tangible and magical.” “An exceptional ensemble...a unanimous sense of musical breath and a meticulous attention to
detail.” “Great power and sweetness...intimate closeness” - just some of the press accolades awarded to this top-ranking
British quartet in recent years. Approaching its tenth year, the Quartet is firmly established on the British musical scene as one
of the leading string ensembles of our time. They return to Luton following their popular success here in 2007. 
Flautist Judith Hall and guitarist Craig Ogden are among the very finest instrumentalists in Britain today. Between these two
splendid Australian artists there is a natural affinity which makes their performances together quite exceptional. The sound
world of flute and guitar is magical and makes for a delicious listening experience, especially in the hands of such dazzling
world-class players as these. They will be playing a kaleidoscope of treasures which they call La Danza, including music by
Bach, Beethoven, Granados, Pujol, Piazzolla, Bartók, Francis Routh, and a French sequence of pieces by Fauré, Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud and Poulenc. 
Award-winning young ensemble, the Lawson Trio brings passion, commitment and intelligence to the concert platform.
Inspired by world-class coaching, the Trio has a mature grasp on the masterworks for vioiin, cello and piano, performing at
London venues including the Southbank Centre and for music societies nationwide. They are truly excellent players, showing a
real commitment not only to chamber music at the highest possible level but also to the performance and appreciation of contemporary music. One such piece, Roxanna Panufnik’s Around Three Corners is included in their programme which also
features works by Schubert, Mozart and Mendelssohn. A delightful end to what we hope will have been a fantastic season. |
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