FOUR of the UK’s leading young baroque wind players will be in Huddersfield next week to share their musical skills.
Together Frances Norbury, Joel Raymond, Rebecca Stockwell and Sarah Humphrys are The Oboe Band.
They will be at the university on Tuesday to re-create sounds of War and Peace with ceremonial, theatre and chamber music.
The band specialises in historical performance and was formed in 2005 to revive this once hugely popular ensemble of oboes and bassoons and to explore its rich and varied repertoire.
The quartet is Ensemble in Residence at the Royal College of Music, where it gives master classes and baroque taster sessions to the students and also performs regular lecture recitals and concerts.
Its repertoire includes theatre music by Purcell and his contemporaries and chamber sonatas from composers throughout Europe.
The Oboe Band also gives concerts and lecture recitals all over the UK, as well as working with the students at the RCM.
The ensemble’s programme at St Paul’s Hall on Tuesday (1.15pm) looks at the oboe band’s role on and off the battlefield and includes works by Lully, Purcell and Pez.
There’s a second performance at St Paul’s next week which will also be well worth a visit.
This time it is the turn of the university’s Symphonic Wind Orchestra, conducted by Phillip McCann, to show off its paces.
The orchestra will be in concert on Thursday at 7.30pm.
Its programme will include a performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, featuring soloist Michelle Cook, and Mike Mower’s Concerto for Flute, with Helen Walsh as the soloist.
The ensemble will also play Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition and there will be solo performances from Hester Read (voice), Naomi Hodson (violin) and Penny Hilton on flugelhorn.
Tickets are available from the Department of Music on 01484 472426 or on the door.
