United Strings of Europe 23/24 Season
Come experience something fresh and unexpected
Dear Friends,
With major national and international debuts, the United Strings of Europe’s 23/24 season offers up bold programming, electrifying collaborations, world premieres and a brand new album.
We start the season with a bang – our Wigmore Hall debut, together with soprano Ruby Hughes.
‘Hughes feels deeply every word she sings…nothing obscures this glorious singer’s radiant tone and sensitive phrasing or the strong sense of her beating heart.’ (The Times)
Inheriting the Earth celebrates nature and our role in preserving it with music by Lili Boulanger, Joanna Marsh, Errollyn Wallen, Rhian Samuel and Osvaldo Golijov. (16 September, 1pm, Wigmore Hall, tickets)
Another collaboration we are immensely looking forward to is a concert with the BBC Singers and the New Voice Collective, with works by some of today’s most exciting composers from Europe and North America including premières by Kim André Arnesen and Morten Lauridsen. (13 October, 7.30pm, Milton Court, tickets).
Our season also features tours to Switzerland and Belgium in early 2024, collaborations with singer Emily Thorner, and pioneer of the magnetic resonating piano Xenia Pestova Bennett, a first visit to Reading Town Hall, a return to St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, several premieres plus a residency at Scotland’s The Night With… new music festival.
And … continuing our fruitful partnership with BIS Records, we are launching our new album Through the Night (out 6 October) with a performance in Nottingham (3 Oct), exploring facets of the night through a range of styles spanning nearly 500 years (all season info here).
This project and the resulting album deserves its own special newsletter with some glimpses behind the scene, but as we are immensely proud of every single bit of it, let’s start with the album cover, an image of the Milky Way at night shot by musician and photographer Robin Lemmel in Switzerland’s Col de Culet.
The arts sector in the UK is facing a particularly challenging time. Recent cuts to Arts Council funding in London and threats to BBC arts funding have cast a pall over the sector. We therefore like to mention the extra hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make all these projects happen, now more than ever, and thank all our friends and colleagues backstage, wholeheartedly.
So, let’s turn Benjamin Britten’s triangle into a square, and we like to invite you, too, to join this holy mix.
Join us this season, whether at Glasgow’s Engine Works or London’s Wigmore Hall, in Belgium, Switzerland or the UK, we would love to welcome you to one of our concerts. (find all season info here)
Julian and the United Strings of Europe
PS As you have noticed, we have moved our newsletter over to substack and want to assure you that all the usual privacy policies remain.
Thank you for reading and do help us spread the word and the music!