New Pictures
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As you can see, we've been out in the sunshine in the lovely Battersea Park getting some new publicity photographs, taken by the wonderful Alejandro Tamagno. We have included a selection of them below, and have updated our website to use them across all our pages. Expect to see more of them in future Newsletters, too.
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Sacconi Commissions - and Raffle!
We are currently working on continuing our long-term aim of working with and commissioning from the best of British composers, performing their works and making them available on recordings. Last year saw commissions and recordings by Graham Fitkin, Jonathan Dove and John McCabe, and we are now making further plans with two composers – Roxanna Panufnik and, once again, Graham Fitkin.
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Roxanna Panufnik (born 1968) has written a wide range of pieces – opera, ballet, music theatre, choral works, orchestral and chamber compositions, and music for film and television – which are performed all over the world. We plan to commission Panufnik to write us a string quartet, which will be premiered at Folkestone 2020 and recorded for Signum Classics.
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Graham Fitkin (born 1963) composes for concerts, dance, film and digital media and runs his own ensemble of 9 soloists.
Having worked recently in the same festival with Graham and exceptional saxophonist Simon Haram, we would like to commission Graham to write us a piece for saxophone and string quartet, to be premiered at Folkestone 2021. Our second CD of Graham’s music will include this piece, Recur for Harp and Quartet, written for harpist Ruth Wall and us in 2016, and other currently unrecorded works.
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Projects of this kind inevitably come at a price, and we are proud to be supporting some of the best of British contemporary composers. As well as seeking funding from grant-giving trusts, we would like to involve our Sacconi friends in the evolution and funding of these pieces. Drawing on the success of our raffle in 2015/16, this December we would like to launch our second raffle, again with the chance to win a house-performance by the Sacconi Quartet at a venue of your choice. We also have a second prize of a limited edition print of a stunning painting of the quartet by artist Emily Patrick, and further prizes of ten of the new CDs mentioned above.
As before, there will be one hundred tickets at £100 each. We will launch the raffle in December, with the draw taking place at the Sacconi Chamber Music Festival in Folkestone on 19th May. You can purchase tickets at any of our concerts, or by replying to this email. As always, we are indebted to all of you for your support and enthusiasm for this endeavour.
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Sacconi Festival in Folkestone: 17-19 May 2019
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Put the dates in your diary now and join us in Folkestone next May for more great music and musicians! The artists are booked and the programme confirmed. We will be launching the full line-up in December at the Friends' Christmas Party, but we can tell you that the programme will include works by Korngold, Beethoven and Schubert, so keep an eye on the Sacconi website for all the details. Hope to see you there!
For information on how to become a Sacconi Friend click here.
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Different Trains and Juliet Letters
September saw us giving our first two performances of Steve Reich’s Different Trains. This extraordinary work, which involves performing with pre-recorded string quartets (thanks to the Smith Quartet for this), and archive recordings of trains and voices has its acoustic challenges. We were lucky to work with sound engineer Simon Hendry, who knows the work inside out. The two venues were the CLF Art Cafe in Peckham, London, and St George’s Bristol. It was amazing how different the two performances felt in two very different venues. It is a wonderful, yet harrowing work to perform. We all felt deeply moved by the piece.
We were joined by our great friend Jon Boden to perform the Juliet Letters in the second half of the concert. We have all grown close to this work, and look forward to performing in many more times. We also look forward to other collaborations with Jon in the future. Watch this space!
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A Sacconi Portrait
In our most recent visit to Sowerby Music, Yorkshire, after our concert there we were fortunate to work with the talented students from Yorkshire Young Musicians, who joined us and worked on a movement of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.
We were also fortunate enough to be painted by artist and designer Jennifer Cottis during our rehearsals. Here’s what she came up with during a three-hour frenzy of music and painting…
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That painting was immediately sold on the day, but if you are interested in her other works, please check out her website. Thank you Jennifer!
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Love,
Ben, Hannah, Robin and Cara
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