Pro Corda, the International Chamber Music Academy, has recently launched an innovative Chamber Music Coaching Fellowship scheme, thanks to generous sponsorship from the Leverhulme Trust. The scheme was launched in May and is the first of its kind in Europe to offer Fellowship holders coaching experience across an age progressive range of chamber music courses from age 8 to 18. The scheme appoints 6 fellows each year based on interview and auditions. Applications are taken from Conservatoires and Universities from across the United Kingdom. Placements last 2 years and allow fellows to gain extensive and intensive experience on top of their existing undergraduate or postgraduate study. As well as the course placements ( which themselves lead to guaranteed fully paid coaching work,) the Pro Corda/ Leverhulme fellows also gain experience adjudicating within the National Chamber Music Festival for Schools operated by Pro Corda. If they wish, they can also have involvement within Pro Corda's many outreach programmes - all of which draw on the core ethos of small ensemble training.

Between courses and placements, fellows receive tutorials and workshop sessions developing areas such as how to use improvisation and creative work within chamber music coaching, together with teaching techniques such as Dalcroze Eurythmics.

For more information about the Pro Corda/ Leverhulme fellowship scheme, please contact Pro Corda's CEO and Artistic Director, Andrew Quartermain, by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via the Pro Corda office on 01728 831354.

It's been a long hot summer full of many wonderful things, and this Autumn brings, we hope, many more. To save you from total pleasure overload, we're releasing all the information about our Autumn 2013 season in bite-size chunks. Remember "Fun Size" Mars Bars? This is the programme-announcement strategy equivalent of lots and lots of them in one of those huge bumper packets ...

So, the very first Heads-Up is for the composers. If you'd like to write for our September Noisy Night (yes that's this September!), please send us your music for Trumpet, Viola and 'Cello by 5pm on Monday 23rd September and we will endeavour to perform it at the Traverse Theatre on Monday 30th September at 8pm. Usual rules apply - no piece longer than 5 minutes, you can include a "tape" part: everything sent (parts and score) in pdf format to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., please.

As ever, Noisy Nights are free, and fun, and a little bit on the fun side of the edge of reason, so please do come as an audience member to hear what everyone's written - and have a go yourself with the 10 minute composer's challenge during the interval (no previous experience of writing music necessary)!

One more quick heads-up:

Red Note is working with composition students at King's Park Secondary School on Noisy Nights Jr as part of the Glasgow UNESCO City of Music Family Fun Day at City Halls . The line-up for this is exactly the same as for the 30th September (trumpet, viola and 'cello), so if you'd like to hear what they've written for us, please do come by City Halls at 2:30pm on Saturday 28th September.

And another quick heads-up:

Reels to Ragas, our ongoing project with tabla player Kuljit Bhamra goes from strength to strength - we've even recorded a CD (on Keda records - KEDCD41) - which is getting a pre-release event at Club Inegales, 130 North Gower St, London NW1 2NB, on Tuesday 17th September at 7:30pm. If you can't make that, then Reels to Ragas is also visiting the Lammermuir Festival at the Bridge Centre, Poldrate, Haddington, East Lothian on Wednesday 18th September at 10pm, and then Westbourne Music in Glasgow on Thursday 19th September at 12:45 (lunchtime).

Meanwhile, Framed Against the Sky continues apace towards its conclusion at the opening of the sound festival throughout September ... follow progress at http://www.framedagainstthesky.com

And then, come October and November - many joys! (James Dillon, David Fennessy, Francois Sarhan, Torsten Lauschmann ... and more!)

www.rednoteensemble.com

GSMD kicks off a new term with the addition of its wonderful, new state of the art concert hall Milton Court. Apart from the numerous opportunities for our student groups to experience performing and rehearsing in a beautiful 650 seater concert hall, we also will have a luxury space to offer our starry array of visiting chamber performers and coaches. The coming term sees the return of our regular visiting quartets, Endellion and Belcea, along with the first visit of Ralf Gothoni as our new International Chair in Keyboard Chamber Music and the appoibtment of Carole Presland as Senior Tutor in Keyboard Chamber Music. To inaugurate the chamber credentials of Milton Court, our Head of Srtings Louise Hopkins will be joining colleagues Thomas Ades, Anthony Marwood and Matthew Hunt for a spectacular recital based around some of the key chamber compositions of Ades.

http://www.gsmd.ac.uk

Summer festival recitals for The Fidelio Trio included Vale of Glamorgan Festival, City of London Festival at LSO St. Luke's and Walled City Music Festival in Derry on 21st July celebrating UK City of Culture 2013.

The Fidelio Trio's position as Artists-in-Residence at St. Patrick's College Drumcondra, Dublin has been hugely successful including recital broadcasts on RTE Lyric FM and continues this year with activities including a year-long series of concerts as well as the inaugural Fidelio Trio and Friends Winter Festival 1st-3rd November with invited artists, Robert Plane (clarinet) and Patricia Rozario (soprano).  Other UK appearances in 2014 include Belfast Music Society International Festival of Chamber Music (13th Feb), Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (27th Feb) and St. John's Smith Square London (13th March).  They will be holding a strings and piano course at Benslow Music (12th-14th November) and will work with performance students at Leeds College of Music in February 2014.

The Fidelio Trio's next CD release is a portrait disc of Robert Fokkens on Metier Divine Art followed by the initial on-line release (full release in February 2014) by Naxos of 'From Vienna' - Korngold's Piano Trio Op.1 and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht (arr. Steuermann).

For further information visit www.fideliotrio.com

Autumn and Spring concerts have seen The Fidelio Trio on a South African tour including a recital for the Johannesburg Music Society, a London recital of American trios by John Harbison, Bright Sheng, Charles Wuorinen and Evan Ziporyn, Bethlehem Chapel, Prague, appearances throughout the UK, New Music Dublin and a short residency at Queen's University Belfast with Robert Plane (clarinet).  Upcoming events include recitals at Vale of Glamorgan Festival (10th May), ensemble-in-residence at Soundings, Austrian Cultural Forum London (14th-17th May www.acflondon.org.uk/music/soundings), City of London Festival at LSO St. Luke's on 28th June and Walled City Music Festival in Derry on 21st July celebrating UK City of Culture 2013.

The Fidelio Trio's position as artists-in-residence at St. Patrick's College Drumcondra, Dublin has been hugely successful including recital broadcasts on RTE Lyric FM and continues next year including a year-long series of concerts as well as the inaugural Fidelio Trio and Friends Winter Festival 1st-3rd November.

The Fidelio Trio's most recent CD release is Michael Nyman's piano trios launching The Michael Nyman Chamber Music series. Included on the album, Piano Trios 1992-2010, are the premiere recordings of Poczatek (this version made especially for The Fidelio Trio) and The Photography of Chance as well as performances of Yellow Beach and the Joseph Brodsky inspired Time Will Pronounce.
For further information visit www.fideliotrio.com

Arts School Lab 
Barbican Centre
 17 – 28 June 2013

Application process now open. Closing date 6 May 2013.

Arts School Lab 2013 is a two-week summer school focused on collaboration, creativity and encounters with everyday life. It is an intensive learning programme intended to bring together creative people with an active curiosity about ideas and action through the arts.  

Core Tutors include film-maker and director Penny Woolcock, artist and co-founder of muf architecture/art, Katherine Clark.

The start of 2012/13 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama has been brimming with chamber music activity. Alongside our regular visiting quartets, Belcea and Endellion, improvisation workshops with David Dolan and performance presentation work with our drama school, the students have had some incredibly inspiring and thought-provoking masterclasses with guest artists Erich Hobarth, Ferenc Rados, and new permanent faculty member Levon Chilingirian. Last year’s brilliant Fellowship ensemble, the Heath Quartet, also continued to visit the school to give masterclass sessions as part of their professional development scheme.

Two very successful teaching and coaching exchange trips have taken place. Our school of WBP sent a wind Quintet to Gottenburg to receive coaching. In Strings, Alasdair Tait and Louise Hopkins accompanied the Trio Isimsiz to Mozarteum in Salzburg. While they gave masterclass, the trio received a week of inspiring teaching from Mozarteum faculty, including Wolfgang Redik and Thomas Riebl.

There are more than fifty regular groups ranging from the more traditional String Quartets and Piano Trios to mixed ensembles such as Clarinet Trios, 'Schubert Octet' groups and ensembles with harp, in addition to a number of project-based ensembles. Much emphasis is placed on the challenges of organisation within groups and the importance of efficient rehearsal techniques, since the demands on the individual while studying are inevitably high and multi-faceted.

The first in a series of annual "Viola Days" at the Guildhall resulted in the creation of a dozen viola ensembles, from duos to octets, providing not only a chance to showcase the versatility of the viola students at the GSMD but also to highlight the strength and depth of repertoire for viola ensemble. Such works also offered the chance for students and coaches to work both on instrument-specific issues as well as chamber music skills in a way that is not normally possible with mixed ensembles.

With an average of two days per week of visiting chamber music coaching and masterclasses, the term proved one of the busiest ever; it also marked a new level of intensity of chamber music provision for double bassists at the Guildhall, with the formation of a number of bass ensembles and coaching sessions with bass emphasis working on chamber reductions of Haydn Symphonies.

Student performances have included three high-profile concerts in the Barbican Centre main hall – wind music of Mozart and string/piano music of Dvorak and Schumann – and a full day devoted to the vocal and chamber music of Catalan composers (Montsalvatge, Toldra, Mompou)

Overall, the most intensive and exciting term yet!

Our recording of Michael Nyman’s piano trios has just been released, launching The Michael Nyman Chamber Music series on MNR.

Included on the album, Piano Trios 1992-2010, are the premiere recordings of Poczatek and The Photography of Chance as well as performances of Yellow Beach and the Joseph Brodsky inspired Time Will Pronounce.

Concerts have taken us on a South African tour including a recital for the Johannesburg Music Society, a London recital of American trios by John Harbison, Bright Sheng, Charles Wuorinen and Evan Ziporyn described as ‘a ‘brilliant performance’ in The Sunday Times and the commencement of our residency at St. Patrick’s College Drumcondra, Dublin.  The December visit includes a composition forum and workshops on pieces selected from the ‘call for scores’, a presentation of John Cage’s Musicircus and a lunchtime concert with Schoenberg’s (arr. Steurmann) Verklärte Nacht and Stephen Gardner’s The Mayfly.

Looking ahead to the New Year, we have concerts in Cardiff (with Patricia Rozario, soprano) on 5^th February and Manchester, 28^th February.  In March we feature trios by Pascal Dusapin, Johannes Maria Staud, David Fennessy, Luke Bedford and Salvatore Sciarrino in a special New Music Festival at the National Concert Hall Dublin.  We travel to Queens University Belfast with Robert Plane (clarinet) on 20^th March for a short residency featuring two recitals and new works by Queens’ composers.  In April we perform in Prague and continue our residency in St. Patrick’s College with visits in February, March and April.  We are looking forward to recording a CD of Robert Fokkens’ music in January including his piano trio, Mammals of Southern Africa.

And summer 2013 includes a City of London Festival recital featuring the world premiere performance of The River Still Sings, a multimedia work by Frank Lyons and visuals by Paul Moore, featuring the voice of actor James Nesbitt, which will be repeated at the Walled City Music Festival, Derry, celebrating UK City of Culture in July.

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Check out www.procorda.com for information on our new Friend's Scheme to celebrate "Pro Corda at 40" and support Europe's fastest growing music school

Announcement & booking form >>

Founded in 1969, Pro Corda is, in the United Kingdom, synonymous with the practice of chamber music. Currently running residential courses for children ages 8 to 18 and non residential courses for children 5 to 10, Pro Corda has for generations been contributing to the development of a community of chamber musicians. Courses are organized by age groups throughout the year, and it is not uncommon for young people to return to the courses over a dozen times, slowly progressing through the different age levels to reach the senior course. In a society in which music education is not available through a conservatory system as exists in many other European countries, Pro Corda has provided a framework for the regular training of young musicians in a broad range of repertoire and ensemble skills. 

We have received notification that the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama has changed its name to Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the following announcement for their 2012 Chamber Ensemble Summer School.

• Chamber Ensemble
• 6-10 August (5-days)
• £450 per trio, £600 per quartet and £100 per performer thereafter
• Robert Irvine, Jacqueline Shave and Jane Atkins

Throughout this intensive summer school you will supported by the expert teachers of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This team of experienced performers and practitioners is world-renowned and their teaching practice is well established within the UK conservatoire setting.

This five-day summer school is for existing chamber ensembles who wish to study intensively together and alongside other string trios, quartets, quintets and sextets in the development of high quality performance practice.

More information >>

• one-to-one instrumental vocal teaching  (Flyer)
• small group and ensemble coaching  (Flyer)

Each workshop is two days and is run in collaboration with the Institute of Education. You can participate in them as stand alone continuing professional development or gain accreditation for them at Masters level.

Unfortunately the deadline for inscription was 7 November but queries about availabilities remaining can be addressed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The workshops will be held at the Guildhall School and Institute of Education. They will offer insights into relevant research and the development of next practice, and will draw on the experience of all participants, providing a space for sharing expertise and issues. They will help to establish a stronger network between musicians in relation to their teaching at this level, and will provide a key resource for institutions in meeting quality assurance requirements. The above modules form part of the School’s professional development framework.

The spring term has been exceptionally inspiring and intense for chamber music at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Our students have benefited from coachings and masterclasses with Takacs Quartet, Belcea Quartet, Endellion Quartet, Heath Quartet, Ursula Smith (Zehtmair Quartet), Gary Hoffman and Carole Presland. Our wind groups have series of sessions on historical practices planned with Tony Pay and our series of Barbican Pre-London Symphony Orchestra concerts continue to provide our most senior groups with the chance to perform on one of the world's leading concert platforms. In collaboration with LSO, we were honoured to present our students in a unique masterclass given by Anne-Sophie Mutter, Andre Previn and Daniel Muller-Schott. All in all, a remarkable and stimulating term of chamber music in the heart of the City of London!

Alasdair Tait, Head of Chamber Music

Dr David Dolan, Head of the Centre for Creative Performance at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, will participate in an interdisciplinary conference on improvisation in artistic performance on March 15. (take a look at the poster)

ChamberStudio http://chamberstudio.org/ is delighted to be hosting a special visit from the distinguished Hungarian musician Ferenc Rados on 27 November 2011. The masterclasses will be in Hall 2 at Kings Place in London. The Belcea Quartet, Barbirolli Quartet, Lawson Piano Trio and Wu Quartet will be playing to him.

The ChamberStudio masterclasses continue every Sunday from October to May, given by many of the eminent chamber musicians in Europe.

ChamberStudio is honored to be hosting a second visit from Shmuel Ashkenasi on 20 May 2012.

Friday 4 March, am - Sunday 6 March, 2011

Chetham's School of Music, Manchester (UK)

Presented by the London String Quartet Foundation and Chetham's School of Music. A weekend of workshops, classes and performances for twelve young quartets from all over the UK, who will be working with Pavel Fischer, Johannes Meissl, Mark Messenger, Christoph Richter, Raphael Todes, Nicholas Jones, Graham Oppenheimer, Stephen Threlfall and the Carducci String Quartet.

If you are a string quartet enthusiast and want to find out how to take part, contact the Ruth Wheal, General Manager at LSQF on 01708 761423 or 0207 258 8244, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Performances are free to attend. No booking required. All events are open to the public. For further information, contact the Outreach Administrator on 0161 839 6548.

ChamberStudio is putting on a Showcase Concert featuring three of the UK's outstanding new-generation chamber groups.
 
The concert is at Kings Place in Hall 1 on Sunday 22 May at 6.30pm.
 
Cavaleri Quartet Beethoven String Quartet Op 59 No 2 Lawson Trio Ravel Piano Trio Wu Quartet Dvorak String Quartet Op 106

Tickets are £9.50 from the Kings Place box office (tel: 020  7520 1490) and online at 
www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/music/chamberstudio-showcase Please see the pdf flyer for further information.

www.chamberstudio.org

• http://www.cavaleriquartet.com/
• http://lawsontrio.com/home.cfm
• http://www.wuquartet.com/

Three remaining dates for masterclasses at Kings Place before ChamberStudio takes a break for the summer:

• 1 May (Martin Lovett and Richard Ireland)
• 8 May (Alasdair Tait and Susan Tomes)
• 15 May (Christoph Richter and Richard Ireland) 

The new season at ChamberStudio starts on 2 October.