Apart from the major projects of the year – the recording and performances of Lennox Berkeley’s Stabat Mater and our first Little Venice Music Festival – we gave performances at venues around the country, including some of our favourite places to visit as well as some new ones.
Perhaps most exciting of all, we fulfilled an long-held ambition to perform at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, and perhaps broke the record for the largest number of occurrences of the name Berkeley in a concert programme. Our friend and Patron Michael Berkeley was present to introduce the concert and we performed his dramatic Clarinet Quintet. We hope to return to this wonderful place very soon.
Other highlights of the year included a second collaboration with the marvellous pianist Tom Poster in Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet at Wiltshire Music Centre – a happy return visit – and a special concert in association with the Hanover Band at the Arundel Festival with guest soloist Pip Eastop for Mozart’s Horn Quintet.
In 2014 our New Cobbett Prize was awarded to Samuel Wesley Lewis for his piece, Sequenza, with part of the prize being a new commission for the ensemble. This we premièred to one of our favourite audiences – that of Luton Music Club – in February.
Considering the undertaking of the Stabat Mater and Little Venice projects it seems amazing that we found time to do anything else this year, but it has been one of the busiest and most exciting periods since we began our journey into the world of chamber music.