SOPRANO Dame Emma Kirkby, known worldwide as “the voice of early music”, is first on stage for Leamington Music’s series of concerts this year.
Dame Emma joins the Chelys Consort of Viols at St Mary’s Church in Warwick for an evening of music by the great Elizabethan composer John Dowland and his contemporaries on Tuesday January 24.
The monthly series in St Mary’s, sponsored by Baxi, continues on February 14 when The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments plays mainly 17th century music, while the final concert in the Warwick series will be given a month later by The Brook Street Band with music by Bach, Handel and Telemann.
The International String Quartet series at Leamington’s Pump Rooms sees the Royal Quartet from Poland perform on January 27. BBC Radio 3 will record the programme which has quartets by Mozart framing two works from the 1980s by Philip Glass and the Polish composer Gorecki.
The Pump Rooms host the Stamic Quartet from the Czech Republic on February 24 and Britain’s Brodsky Quartet a month later.
Leamington’s Spa Centre hosts five concerts. O Duo, featuring percussionists Oliver Cox and Owen Gunnell, visit on February 8 to give a 2pm programme for schools and then an evening concert.
On March 1 the Borealis Saxophone Quartet will play in the Studio in a programme mixing original works for saxophone quartet and classics by Bach, Barber and Gershwin, and on March 19, Ensemble 360 comes for its annual visit with a Family Concert in the morning – Paul Rissmann’s The Chimpanzees of Happytown, best suited for three to seven year-olds, and a large scale chamber concert in the afternoon with popular works by Mozart and Beethoven.
Visit www.royalspacentreandtownhall.co.uk for tickets www.leamingtonmusic.org for full programme details.
