Stratford upon Avon
Chamber Music Society
President: Sir William Lawrence, Bt.
Registered Charity No. 508874

Currently in residence at the Royal Academy of Music, with recent debuts at The Purcell Room and the Wigmore Hall, the Piatti quartet are fast emerging as one of the UK’s leading young string quartets. They were winners of the 2010/11 Tunnell Trust Award.

Martin Lovett, former cellist of the Amadeus Quartet, wrote of the Lawson Trio: ‘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.

Richard was born in 1987, and graduated with a double First in music from Clare College Cambridge in 2008. He completed a Master’s in performance (with distinction) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010, where he is now a Fellow, continuing his studies with Martin Roscoe. He has a particular interest in bringing contemporary British music to wider audiences.

Madeleine Mitchell has performed concertos and given recitals in over forty countries. Since her professional career began, she has had a keen involvement with contemporary music, working with Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Nyman, as well as commissioning and giving premieres of many new works. She has been a Professor at the Royal College of Music since 1994, as has Andrew Ball, who was made a Fellow in 2006, and who had a duo with Madeleine since 1992.

The Galitzin quartet, named after the dedicatee of Beethoven’s quartets Op.127, 130 and 132, met at the Royal Academy in 2003, and they held the Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellowship there in 2006-7. Since then, they have given many concerts in France, Switzerland, Holland and Germany, as well as in this country, and have had intensive coaching from the Ysäye quartet in Holland.

I was much heartened by the goodwill shown towards the Society by those members who attended the Annual General Meeting in May this year, and I very much hope we shall find a way to build on that over the coming season. These are testing times for groups like ours.

Beethoven to begin with, Beethoven to end with, and Beethoven in the middle can’t be all that bad. I can vividly remember, as a teenager, hearing Louis Kentner play in a single programme the three nicknamed sonatas that appear in our October and January recitals. But we can also offer Mozart and Haydn, Schubert and Mendelssohn, Grieg and Faure, as well as works written in the last few years by Timothy Jackson and Magnus Lindberg. Each year, the choice of artists seems more rich and bewildering, but we have continued our policy of offering a mixture of the experienced with the up-and-coming.

We have gritted our teeth, and left both single ticket and subscription membership prices unchanged, in the hope that as well as keeping our faithful members, we can attract new ones by the substantial savings that can be made by joining the Society. Experiencing great music live is a wonderful inspiration and solace.

Countess of Munster Musical Trust