INTRODUCTION

Our membership and attendance at our concerts have increased in the past two-three years, which means that we can plan an ambitious series of concerts in the 2024-25 season, and continue to develop our outreach programme.

The season opens in September with a concert by the Royal Northern Sinfonia Strings playing Mendelssohn’s amazing String Octet, written when he was only 16, along with works by Bach, Haydn and Shostakovich.

Our next concert in October features Katherine Jenkinson and Friends. It ends with Schubert’s String Quintet, which contains some of the most beautiful music ever written. It will also include a new arrangement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto for six string players.

In November we welcome Maria Włoszczowska (violin) and Alasdair Beatson (piano) with a recital of music by Schubert, Fauré and Strauss.

This is followed in December by a young pianist sponsored by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. Ignas Maknickas will play short pieces by four different composers, ending with a Schubert Piano Sonata.

In January a Wind Quintet, Lumas Winds, comes to us through the Making Music Young Artists Award scheme. They will play a rich variety of pieces by well-known and less well-known composers.

International Women’s Day is in March and in celebration we will feature the Marsyas Trio in an afternoon concert of music written by women composers.

We end our season in May with a concert by a British String Quartet with a growing reputation, the Solem Quartet. It will include Dvorak’s American Quartet, as well as a work written specially for the Quartet and two more short works by women composers.