Bartholomew LaFollette & Simon Callaghan

What a privilege and a joy it is to have been asked to curate this wonderful series of concerts! My own life as a pianist has been shaped by the thrill of uncovering lesser-known repertoire – music unjustly neglected through gender discrimination, exile, or other forms of oppression. Bringing these voices to a wider audience feels not just like a pleasure, but a responsibility.

Across these six programmes sit works that have too often lived in the shadows of the ‘Greats’ of the musical canon, despite their extraordinary quality. Amy Beach, one of America’s most gifted late Romantic composers, wrote Piano Quintets and Trios of remarkable emotional breadth and intensity – music of generosity and deep expressive power. Germaine Tailleferre, the lone woman of Les Six, brings refinement, wit and a distinctive elegance that deserves far wider recognition. Ina Boyle’s visionary Irish voice, Elfrida Andrée’s barrier breaking Scandinavian clarity, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s magnificent Nonet – which brings our season to a glorious close – all sit proudly alongside much-loved masterpieces by Antonín Dvořák, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Old favourites heard, perhaps, in a new light.

I’m especially grateful to the exceptional musicians joining us this season, not only for their artistry, but for the imagination, curiosity and passion they’ve brought to shaping these programmes. I hope these evenings will surprise, move and delight you – and perhaps leave you wondering, as I so often have, why did we have to wait so long?

Simon Callaghan
Artistic Director