Thursday 4 November 2021, 14.00 GMT

Friday 5 November 2021, 20.00 GMT

Formed in 1974 by students at the Royal Academy of Music under the guidance of renowned quartet leader, Sidney Griller, they rapidly achieved national recognition. In addition to performing and broadcasting extensively throughout the UK, the Coull Quartet, which still includes two of its founder members, has made tours of Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Columbia, Brazil, Australia, China, India and the Far East, Iceland and Singapore and for over forty years were Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Warwick.

Since the mid-1980s the Coull Quartet has made over 30 acclaimed recordings featuring a wide selection of the repertoire closest to their hearts.

Roger Coull violin, Philip Gallaway violin, Jonathan Barritt viola and Nicholas Roberts cello.

Programme:
Mozart: String Quartet in D major K499
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor Op 10
Beethoven: String Quartet in C major 'Rasumovsky' Op 59 No 3

Monday 8 November 2021, 15.00 GMT

Double bassist Ketan Curtis won first prize in the inaugural Haslemere String competition at the age of 17 going on to perform concertos with the Waverly Ensemble and the Winchester Camerata. During this time he was studying with Caroline Emery at the Yehudi Menuhin School where he had the opportunity to play in masterclasses with Robert Levin and Paul Ellison.
He has performed as an orchestral musician in many European concert halls and is currently studying at the Royal College of Music where he is a Victor Dahdaleh foundation scholar. Ketan has led both the RCM Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra double bass sections. This summer he was a quarter finalist in the Latin Orchestra of Europe Double Bass competition.

Programme:
Francois Rabbath: Le Cri de Venise
Frank Proto: Sonata No 3 (Adagio-poco rubato - Adagio - Freely-dreamy e Rubato) 
Giovanni Bottesini: Fantasia Ceritto
Louis Andriessen: Elegy
Rabbath: Hunting Horn

Thursday 11 November 2021, 20.00 GMT

Rachel Beckett and Elizabeth Walker have performed together since the early nineties, in orchestras such as John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists, The Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment and The Mozartists. This long collaboration has allowed a deep musical compatibility to flourish, and they have greatly enjoyed preparing for this concert, and their planned CD recording of these Sonatas for the record label Devine Music – due for release in 2022.
 
Programme:
The Complete Sonatas for Two Flutes by W F Bach

Friday 12 November 2021, 20.00 GMT

Join early music group Joglaresa for a plague party (see Boccaccio's Decameron!) where the knights are villainous and the dancers seductive. Alongside the medieval 'hit' Machaut's Douce Dame there are many lesser-known pieces that you'll wish you'd always known - some of medieval Europe's 'funkiest' tunes (it wasn't all plainchant you know)! Obviously, Joglaresa draw upon the 1270s rather than the 1970s. Any reference to the 1970s is entirely... intentional.

Lots of new repertoire - songs may include 'The Merciful Knight' (Se ome fezer de grado), 'The Knight who Became the Devil's Vassal' (U alguen a Jesucristo), 'The Thieving Knight' (Ali u a penedenca), 'The Knight Rendered Impotent by the Virgin Mary' (Sempr' acha Santa Maria), 'The Imprisoned Knight' (De muitas guisas), plus dance songs, musings on our mortality, and compositions/arrangements of medieval song by us modern minstrels - all delivered with the group's inimitable energy and cheer.

Tuesday 23 November 2021, 20.00 GMT

Writing in 1668, Samuel Pepys describes what we all know too well: the tendency for music to “get stuck” in our minds. Such tunes, so-called earworms, go round and round in our heads, ‘burrowing’ deeper and deeper as if our minds were made of soil. Ohrwurm explores how tunes and dances wormed their way into many aspects of music-making in 17th and 18th century Europe.

Programme:
Ciaconna Medley: After various Italian composers including Antonio Bertali , Tarquinio Merula and Claudio Monteverdi 
Pierre Sandrin: Doulce Memoire - with diminutions by Diego Ortiz 
Pierre-Francisque Carroubel: Spagnolette - from Terpsichore, Musarum Aoniarum
Giulio Caccini: Aria di Romanesca 
Francesco Rognoni Taeggio: Vestiva I colli (Diminutions on a Madrigal by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina)
Andrea Falconieri: La suave melodia
Gareth Moorcraft: Diaries of the Early Worm 
Anthony Holborne: Cradle Pavan, Galliard ’The Fairy Round’ and Almaine ’The Night Watch’
Division Flute (1706): Greensleeves
John Dowland: Fantasia in D major, The Earle of Essex Galiard, or Can she excuse my wrongs 
Giovanni Paolo Foscarini: ‘Chiaccona Mariona alla vera Spagnola’
Diego Ortiz: Recercada Segunda sobre tenores Italianos – from Trattado de Glosas (1553)

Thursday 25 November 2021, 14.00 GMT

A lunchtime lecture recital by Gerald Place

In Shakespeare's plays and poems references to songs and singing are abundant and these songs vary from the crudest ballads to some of the most subtle and moving art-songs to be found anywhere. In a theatre with little scenery and no lighting effects, songs set the mood, not only for love, but also for magic and healing. For audiences to be convinced and moved the skill of delivery must have been of the highest order. Shakespeare both praises good singers and, rather more often, ridicules poor and pretentious ones just as his inclusion of music in the plays veers from sublime to slapstick.
Gerald Place, a former choral exhibitioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, draws together all these references to singing, illustrating the talk with songs accompanied by the viola da gamba.

The lecture recital begins at 2pm following lunch at 1pm (included in the in-person ticket price).  

Sunday 28 November 2021, 16.00 GMT

Enjoy a selection of finely cut sandwiches, freshly baked scones with Cornish clotted cream and a mouth watering range of exquisitely presented cakes, as well as different types of tea to choose from. Why not sip a glass of prosecco to add some sparkle to the occasion.

The elegant ambiance is complemented with live music, the final ingredient to ensure your Afternoon Tea at Benslow Music is quite simply unforgettable!

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