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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We are planning our most ambitious project to date - almost 3 weeks touring a programme centred around the Schubert Octet, with concerts in rural areas as well as towns/cities, education and community workshops and a research aspect involving the historical instruments collection at St. Cecilia’s in Edinburgh. We want to bring our concerts to new audiences across the UK who may have less access to classical music at the highest level, and to introduce those who are less familiar with historical performance to a new lens for discovering the music of the past with fresh eyes.

As a group of musicians who perform together and separately in the most prestigious concert halls around the world, we aim to bring our music into the hearts of communities, offering an up-close experience to all ages, ethnicities and orientations with our education and community workshops, and introducing the historical and cultural aspects of the music and historical instruments during the concerts in person.

The programme brings the music into the present, with premieres of specially commissioned arrangements of Schubert’s songs that directly inspired his chamber music compositions. Two of these works, the much-loved string quartets ‘Rosamunde’ and ‘Death and the Maiden’ were written astonishingly within weeks of the octet. We want to present these works together to shine a new light on the Octet and to offer a new perspective on Schubert’s chamber music oevre.

As well as reaching new audiences nationwide and connecting with our loyal supporters in London, we are bringing our project to Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, developing the talents of the bright young stars of the future. We also hope to have our London concert filmed to produce content to generate more tours in the future. The proposed dates for the project are 1-19 May 2026, and our tour plan is as follows: 1-5 Lake District (Belle Isle, Kendal), 6-10 Scotland (Edinburgh, Tighnabruaich, Aberfoyle, Perth), 7-19 England (Manchester, Cambridge, Bath, Oxford, Colchester, also investigating Cornwall) and Vermeer Chamber Concerts (London, hopefully filmed). Some of these venues are confirmed and others we are currently in negotiation with.