Past Events

“The acoustic is wonderful - much better than St Martins in the Fields!” Kaxan String Quartet at Rook Lane Chapel 2009

Doors open 10:30am for a sociable hour of fresh, fair trade coffee, Sunday papers and conversation.

Concerts start at 11:30am, lasting for one hour without an interval.

Featured in this Coffee Concert series:

Sunday 16th Jan :	The Marian Consort
Sunday 30th Jan :	Gemma Rosefield and Morgan Szymanski
Sunday 13th Feb :	Clara Sanabras and Harvey Brough

 

Subscriptions: Adults £25.00 / 21 and under: £12.00 (all three concerts, including coffee). Tickets are fully transferable (i.e. can be shared with a friend). For further information and booking 01373 472709.

The Marian Consort

The Marian Consort draws its six members from among the very best new generation singers around today who also regularly contribute to such internationally renowned ensembles as The Sixteen, The Monteverdi Choir and Stile Antico. Appearances on Radio 3 and at the York Early Music Festival have earned critical acclaim. The Marian Consort usually sing one voice per part and feel that this allows for clarity of texture and subtlety of interpretation.

Their debut disc of Spanish devotional music is due for release around the time of this Coffee Concert, our first to feature a purely vocal ensemble. Rory McCleery, who directs the Marian Consort, has selected around a dozen short pieces for us, each by a different composer. He describes the programme as ‘very audience friendly’.

Morgan Szymanski and Gemma Rosefield

Morgan Szymanski (guitar) and Gemma Rosefield (cello) fit our requirements for Coffee Concert performers exactly – accomplished musicians who are also good verbal communicators. Ever since their wonderful Autumn concert at Rook Lane in 2008, we have been hoping they would come back.  Morgan has appeared as a soloist with the Halle, the Bournemouth Symphony and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras.

He leads a chamber group called Machaca and The Gramophone called their recent CD, ‘Mano a Mano’,  “a real jewel of a disc with Szymanski demonstrating that he is not only a soloist of formidable talent, but also a fine chamber musician”. Gemma  has won innumerable plaudits and prizes including  the Pierre Fournier Award at the Wigmore Hall and has performed with such eminent musicians as Stephen Kovacevich. In great demand, Gemma’s busy future schedule takes her to various destinations such as Bordeaux, Brussels, Prague and Japan. 

Clara Sanabras and Harvey Brough

We asked Ensemble Retrospect (Clara Sanabras and Harvey Brough) to put together a special St. Valentine’s programme of songs on the theme of love. However, ‘never runs smooth’ is the subtext, so prepare to meet ‘The Lunatick Lover’, ‘Bess o’ Bedlam’ and ‘La Lorona’ (who drowned her children for love of a man!). Though she has sung with the Harp Consort, the Palladian Ensemble and the Dufay Collective, Barcelona-born Clara is as comfortable with contemporary song as she is with ‘old music’.

Her recent CD of self-composed songs was well reviewed and while best known as a singer, Clara also plays a variety of stringed instruments from lute to charango. Harvey Brough was singing Bach cantatas and recording Britten by the age of 13, before going on to a varied performing and composing career that has taken in choral work, jazz and diverse collaborations with figures such as Simon Rattle. Harvey’s commission for the London Mozart Players to commemorate D Day has recently been released on CD.