Concerts at Cratfield

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:58:24 +0000

Blyth Valley Chamber Music presents six afternoon concerts on alternate Sundays each summer (July-September): the series is called Concerts at Cratfield, since for almost twenty years our concerts have taken place in the church of St Mary’s Cratfield, Suffolk (UK). Cratfield is a small village in tranquil and rolling countryside about 5 miles (8km) west of the A12, close to Halesworth and Yoxford: click here for a local map and here for further details of the church and its facilities for concertgoers. Concerts begin at 3pm, usually ending at around 5pm.

Our concerts are all of chamber music, from solo recitals, duos and trios through to string quartets and larger ensembles: piano quintets and string or wind sextets are the largest groups which can fit comfortably on the platform at the church. Most concerts are purely instrumental, but singers occasionally take part too. Our approach is simple: to invite to play for us the best young ensembles we can afford, playing pieces from the best in the repertoire to the best standard attainable by them.

We regularly feature performers with connections to the activities of Aldeburgh Music nearby: the Aldeburgh Festival in June, the winter lunchtime concerts at the Jubilee Hall and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at Snape. Each Cratfield season mixes well-established works from the ‘core repertoire’ with lesser known, early and new music, including first performances.

For more detail on our history and organisation, click here to go to the ‘About’ page.

2011 season: first information

Philip — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:41:00 +0000

Here is a summary – in outline and provisional only – of the six concerts which will form our 2011 season. All concerts are at 3pm at St Mary’s Cratfield.

Sunday 3 July: Lumen Ensemble clarinet, viola and piano

Haydn · Schumann · Kurtág · Mozart

Sunday 17 July: Sacconi Quartet

Haydn · Timothy Salter (first public performance: Blyth Valley Chamber Music commission) · Dvorák

Sunday 31 July: Henschel Quartet

Mozart · Ginastera · Beethoven

Sunday 14 August: Libor Novacek piano

Haydn · Brahms · Liszt

Sunday 28 August: Ensemble Diderot two violins, cello and harpsichord

JS Bach · CPE Bach · Goldberg

Sunday 11 September: Elias String Quartet

Haydn · Janácek · Beethoven

Further details will be posted here on our website as they become available; if you have signed up for our e-mail alert service, they will also be sent to you individually. If you are a Member or Patron, you will receive an update on the 2011 season if you attend our AGM on Sunday 16 January 2011. If you have requested a season brochure by post, we shall send you this during April 2011.

Priority booking for 2011 (by post only) opens on Friday 8 April 2011 and general booking on Tuesday 26 April 2011.

As one season ends…

Philip — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:51:55 +0000

Running in parallel with the Concerts at Cratfield season – but on the other side of the A12, just north of Westleton on the Blythburgh road – is the enterprising series of chamber and solo concerts run by Jeremy and Helen Hayes at Potton Hall: better known as a recording studio but also a spacious yet intimate concert hall.

On Monday 27 September at 7.30pm, just after our own 2010 season ends, multiple award-winning French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet – seen at the BBC Proms 2010 performing the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand – returns to his favourite recording venue to give an exclusive taste of his forthcoming Beethoven CD series for Chandos. An unmissable chance to hear this acclaimed artist play sonatas by Beethoven, including the Pathétique. ‘Bavouzet’s command of touch, colour and rhythmic vitality are all that one could ask for.’ (The Sunday Times)

To book tickets at £15 each, send an e-mail to Helen Hayes: helen@pottonhall.com.

New string quartet commissioned

Philip — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:50:25 +0000

Blyth Valley Chamber Music has commissioned a new string quartet from established British composer Timothy Salter. His Quartet no 3, for whose commission Blyth Valley Chamber Music successfully applied for support from the Radcliffe Trust, will have its first public performance at Cratfield, when the Sacconi Quartet return to play for us in July 2011.

The idea for the commission came from the quartet themselves, who are keen to perform works by living composers. The Sacconi have already played twice at Cratfield, in 2006 (with Morgan Szymanski guitar) and 2009.

Data protection – and our mailing-list

Philip — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:45:21 +0000

All organisations which hold and process personal data need to have clear principles and practices. This is to comply with the law, as well as to reassure those who deal with them that it is safe to let the organisation have data about them. Concerts at Cratfield has now published the first version of an annual Data Protection Statement, which can be accessed from the ‘About‘ page of this website. The document summarises the legal background and lists all the different classes of data which we hold, how we use each and the safeguards we adopt to ensure that the data is accurate, up-to-date, secure and not misused.

For our concertgoers, it is their contact information on our mailing-list which is the main data we hold, together with details of the tickets they have bought. Most of those who book by post or telephone pay with a debit or credit card, so also trust us with their card details. The new Statement makes clear that, once a ticket sale is complete, we destroy any hard copy record which could be used to link a purchaser’s name to their card details; the card details themselves are also destroyed at the same time.

In parallel, we are starting to review the whole of our mailing-list – as we do every few years. So anyone who attends any of our 2010 concerts will be asked to fill in a short form, confirming their contact details and their wish to stay on, or be added to, our mailing-list.

The form will also give everyone on the mailing-list a chance to opt out of receiving the season brochure by post, as well as any other general mailings from Concerts at Cratfield. This comes about since our website is a better source of information than our brochure: it has much more information and is regularly updated, especially with ticket availability for each concert.

Anyone who gives us an e-mail address will now be able to sign up to receive e-mail alerts about our concerts: these will include booking information (and a printable booking form) for the next season. If you are reading this ‘post’, you may be someone familiar with this website, who would welcome e-mail alerts in preference to receiving a brochure by post. Reducing the scale of our annual mailing will of course reduce our costs, as well as saving resources more generally; but everyone who would like to be sent mailings by post will still receive them (free of charge).

Lunch from ‘best deli’?

Philip — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:40:51 +0000

STOP PRESS (September 2010): Lawson’s have now won (out of 400 entrants) the national award for ‘Deli of the Year’.

Our performers’ pre-concert lunches all come from Richard Lawson and Claire Bruce-Clayton at Lawson’s in Aldeburgh, in the High Street opposite the Post Office and Co-op.

Open on summer Sundays from 10am, the shop offers concertgoers too all the ingredients for a superb picnic, to be enjoyed in a field off one of the lanes leading to Cratfield or in the churchyard before the concert. Click here to read Rose’s full article, which also praises the range of local food available in Suffolk and consumers’ commitment to it.

For a bottle to go with your picnic, Marc Medland at marc1wines, further down the High Street on the opposite side, next to Munchies, offers a good choice of beers and carefully selected wines, many from unusual regions of both New and Old Worlds and from small producers. The shop opens at 11am on Sundays.