The Bloomsbury Players' most ambitious project to date: a two-week tour across England and Scotland with an innovative programme centred around Schubert’s Octet. They present this monumental work through a historically informed lens, using period instruments (including wind instruments from the collection at St. Cecilia's, Edinburgh), while linking it to the present with newly-commissioned arrangements of Schubert’s songs that inspired his instrumental chamber music. With concerts and education workshops in rural communities as well as cities, they aim to introduce audiences of all ages to historical performance, drawing in new audiences and bringing them closer to the music (quite literally) by performing in a variety of intimate and less traditional concert venues, and in places with limited access to high-level live classical music.