Blyth Valley Chamber Music presents six afternoon concerts on alternate Sundays each summer (July-September): the series is called Concerts at Cratfield, because since 1991 all our summer concerts have been given at the church of St Mary’s Cratfield, East Suffolk (UK).   Concerts begin at 3pm, usually ending at around 5pm.

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.  We specially welcome young people and students, who can book tickets at half-price.

The Badke Quartet 2011

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 ensembles we can afford, playing pieces from the best in the repertoire to the best standard attainable by them; and to offer a wide variety of ensembles and composers within each season.

We often 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 young performers with those further on in their careers (we often invite back those whom we have enjoyed in earlier seasons); it also blends well-established works from the ‘core repertoire’ with lesser known, early and new music, including first performances and new commissions.

For more detail on our history and organisation, click here or on the ‘About’ tab above.

Adam Johnson

Daniel Grimwood, who was to have partnered Min-Jin Kym violin and Jamie Walton cello in our second concert this season – works for piano trio – is no longer available to play at Cratfield.

Instead, we are glad to welcome for the first time Adam Johnson, a regular pianist colleague of Jamie’s in the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival.  He is also Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the London-based Northern Lights Symphony Orchestra and a composer; he trained at the RNCM.

The programme for the concert remains unchanged: Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Schubert.  Click here for the Concerts page for 22 July 2012.

Booking for the 2012 season of concerts – by post or e-mail only – opened on Wednesday 21 March for our Patrons and on Wednesday 4 April for our Members.

General booking

General booking is now open, by post or e-mail and using a credit or debit card; you can also book by phone.  Please note that most top price seats are now sold for most concerts.

Further information

For more details on on this year’s concerts, click here for our Concerts page, or click on the Concerts tab at the top of this page; for more information on how to book, click here to go to our Tickets page, or click on the Tickets tab above.  If you are on our mailing list, you should already have received a printed season brochure by post and/or an e-mail booking form.  If you haven’t and would like either, please contact the Box Office, by phone to 01728 453193 or by e-mail to info@concertsatcratfield.org.uk.

Cratfleld gravestone

Our mailing list

If you have recently moved house or changed e-mail address or phone number, or if you’d like to be added to our (free) mailing list, please let us know.  You can opt for a printed season brochure by mail; a booking form and other updates by e-mail; or both.

[Please note that this website always contains more information than we can include in the printed brochure; it's also updated regularly.]

Giving us your details

To add your details to our mailing list, or to update them, contact us by phone or e-mail:

The Concerts at Cratfield phone number is 01728 453193.  Please call between 10am and 6pm, and not on weekends or public holidays: this maximises the chance Tom will take your call in person and deal with your enquiry straight away.  If no-one answers, please leave your name and phone number as clearly as you can and a brief message.

Or e-mail us with your details, telling us how you’d like to hear from us in future, to info@concertsatcratfield.org.uk.

We have booked the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh for a concert at 4pm on Sunday 7 October 2012.  This is to raise funds for the national charity, the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

So far Ian Brown piano, Anna Dennis soprano, Min-Jin Kym violin and Jamie Walton cello  have agreed to appear, performing music by Bach, Purcell, Monteverdi & Ravel.

Tickets are now on sale  at £20 & £25, bookable through the Concerts at Cratfield Box Office with a credit or debit card: telephone Tom on 01728-453193.

Tom Southern & Philip Britton

e-mail tom.southern@marshwinds.co.uk

Sir Thomas Beecham

On Saturday 12 May 2012 at 7.30pm, David Holmes, founder of Blyth Valley Chamber Music, will introduce his first programme of historic recordings of classical music from his own collection.  The music will be updated digitally and reproduced professionally.

Sir Thomas Beecham will be heard conducting Delius (1926); Pablo Casals playing Elgar (1945); and Rudolf Kempe conducting the great Dresden Staatskapelle in Richard Strauss (1970).

The event will be at Walpole Old Chapel, which stands on the B1117 just NE of Walpole village.  Parking will be available.

Admission will be free; there will be a collection in aid of the Chapel.  Bring cushions for greater ease and comfort.  Non-alcoholic refreshments will be served in the interval.

Concerts at Cratfield regulars will be specially welcome; two further events in July and September are also planned.

For more details, phone David on 01986 784412 or e-mail on dv.holmes@btinternet.com.

Of the new CD, Ben Hogwood on www.classicalsource.com says: ‘This is another successful disc for a partnership that clearly enjoys playing and recording together.  Their forthright style in each of these three pieces pays dividends, and when all three are listened to consecutively they serve as an appropriate reminder of Rostropovich’s incalculable influence on the cello repertoire of the 20th-century.’  And Geoffrey Norris in the Daily Telegraph (click here for the full article) was equally positive: ‘highly cultured playing, rich in enjoyment’.

Jamie returns to Cratfield on Sunday 22 July 2012, joined by Min-Jin Kym violin and Adam Johnson piano.  They play piano trios by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich (the dramatic and Klezmer-inflected piano trio no 2 in E minor from 1944, dedicated to the memory of the composer’s friend Ivan Sollertinsky) and Schubert.  Click here for the page about their concert.

More recently, Jamie has been recording the three Britten solo cello suites in the Britten Studio at Snape, also for Signum, for release in the Britten anniversary year of 2013.

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 have adopted to ensure that the data is accurate, up-to-date, secure and not misused.

If you are a concertgoer, our mailing-list records the contact information you have most recently given us, together with details of tickets you have bought.  Those of  you who pay with a debit or credit card (almost all of you who make advance bookings for the 2012 season) also trust us with your card details.  The Statement makes clear that, once a ticket sale is complete, we destroy any hard copy record which could be used to link your name to your card details; the card details themselves are also destroyed at the same time.

In parallel, our mailing-list now gives everyone 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.  Instead, you can now sign up to receive e-mail alerts about our concerts: these will include booking information (and a printable booking form) for the next season.

To opt for this, just send an e-mail with your details to info@concertsatcratfield.org.uk.  Reducing the scale of our annual mailing of course reduces 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).