Events
Please find below a selection of concerts around the country, and sometimes beyond, featuring woodwind instruments. If you have a concert that you think might be relevant for listing on our page, please ‘Get in Touch’ with the details and a link to the booking page.
Julian Bliss & Carducci Quartet
May 5th 2024 at 16:00 – 17:00
The rich and harmonious blend of clarinet and strings is alive to human joys and sadness and the clarinet’s nimble agility and vocal qualities are nowhere better captured than in two of the Romantic era’s best-loved works for that evergreen instrumental combination.
Weber the opera composer, and Brahms the symphonist are reflected in two chamber music gems, with bravura public display set alongside whispered confidences to trusted friends. Weber’s soloist gurgles, frolics and declaims but in Brahms, a boisterous gypsy dance acts as a counterweight to a pervading tender melancholy, a delicately spun succession of songs without words reflecting the dark tones of Beethoven’s imposing quartet. It’s a programme made for longstanding collaborators – the charismatic, versatile Julian Bliss, deeply and intuitively attuned to his quartet companions.
Beethoven – String Quartet No.11 Op.95 in F minor “Serioso”
Weber – Clarinet Quintet in B-flat major, Op.34
Brahms – Clarinet Quintet in B minor Op.115
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Calefax Reed Quintet – Bach, Dvořák, Debussy, Gershwin
13/05/2024 1:00 pm
Wigmore Hall, 36 Wigmore Street, London, W1U 2BP
Calefax Reed Quintet
Bach, Dvořák, Debussy, Gershwin
May 13th 2023 at 13:00 – 14:00
The Times has described the ensemble as ‘five extremely gifted Dutch gents who almost made the reed quintet seem the best musical format on the planet’. Though new works form part of its repertoire for the unique combination of oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet and bassoon, here it offers a variety of arrangements.
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Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
23/05/2024 7:30 pm
Middlesbrough Town Hall, Albert Rd, Middlesbrough, TS1 2QJ
Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
May 23rd 2024 at 19:30 – 21:15
Fresh, optimistic and convivial, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is the centrepiece of this concert, which closes with Beethoven’s graceful yet high-voltage Symphony No. 1. Along the way experience the rhythmic energy of Stravinsky’s spiky Danses Concertantes and Fazil Say’s Chamber Symphony, inspired by the music of Turkey.
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Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
24/05/2024 7:30 pm
Sage One, Sage Gateshead, St Mary's Square, Gateshead, NE8 2JR
Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
May 24th 2024 at 19:30 – 21:15
Fresh, optimistic and convivial, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is the centrepiece of this concert, which closes with Beethoven’s graceful yet high-voltage Symphony No. 1. Along the way experience the rhythmic energy of Stravinsky’s spiky Danses Concertantes and Fazil Say’s Chamber Symphony, inspired by the music of Turkey.
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Close-up: Tutti in threes
16/06/2024 2:15 pm
Recital Hall, Concertgebouwplein 10, 1071 LN Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Close-up: Tutti in threes
June 16th 2024 at 14:15 – 16:35
The Close-up series is the best way to experience the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s musicians as individuals! Tonight wind players form the orchestra will come to the foreground, playing music by Beethoven, Reicha, Glinka and Poulenc, with the number 3 as the unifying theme.
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Woodwind Forward!
16/06/2024 2:15 pm
Kleiner Saal, Elbphilharmonie, Platz d. Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg, Germany
Woodwind Forward!
June 16th 2024 at 11:00 – 13:00
Already in the first half of the 20th century, French composers and orchestras used to put the woodwinds in the foreground. It should define their style and the special French sound. Francis Poulenc was one of the most important representatives of this tradition, and his music focuses on multicolor and sensitive poetry.
“”After all the impressionistic mists, will not this simple and clear art [of Poulenc], so reminiscent of Scarlatti and Mozart, be the next phase of our music?”” of wind music prove true in any case. With his few wind works, he set standards that still have an impact today.
Poulenc’s compositional spheres are complemented by the music of Henri Tomasis, Jean Françaix and Charles Koechlin. Behind the seemingly naïve title of Tomasi’s rural concerto »Concert champêtre« lies a knowledgeable allusion to French rococo music mixed with the Corsican flair of Tomasi’s homeland.
Charles Koechlin’s Bassoon Sonata takes us back to the sounds of Impressionism. In the France of his time, Koechlin was considered an outsider and yet created an exceptional work that shows how delicate and at the same time wild and intoxicating the bassoon is. And how many magnificent nuances of sound the instrument, which usually stands in the background, carries within itself.
Jean Françaix’s trio in four movements shows the 82-year-old composer still at the height of his creative power: melodic invention, rhythmic wit, harmonic elasticity and an elegant instrumental writing form a particularly fortunate combination.
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Beethoven, Beamish & Prokofiev
20/06/2024 7:00 pm
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS
Beethoven, Beamish & Prokofiev
June 20th 2024 at 19:00 – 20:40
Sally Beamish’s concerto begins with two soloists calling to each other across a distance, and explores connection and longing. This delicately nuanced interpretation of the Seventh Symphony forms part of Gianandrea Noseda’s thrilling Prokofiev cycle with the LSO. Distans was written for Janine Jansen and Martin Fröst, designed to make the most of their astonishing abilities.
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