Posts Tagged ‘Cratfield’
Concerts at Cratfield
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.
Lunch from ‘best deli’?
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.