What: Manchester Camerata @ RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music)
When:
Reshaping classical forms, inviting instruments into conversation, and capturing the spirit of a place, this is an evening that illuminates the many ways structure, dialogue, and setting can inspire musical imagination.
Caroline Shaw is a boundary-defying musician who moves fluidly between roles, genres, and mediums, shaping sound with curiosity and invention. Entr’acte is inspired by the minuet and trio of Haydn’s Op 77 No 2, which Shaw describes as a journey ‘through the looking glass’, where a familiar structure is transformed through subtle, technicolour shifts in harmony and texture.
Composed in 1803 for his pupil and patron, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto brings violin, cello, and piano into vivid musical conversation. An unusual instrumentation for the time, the three soloists speak, interrupt, and support one another in a dynamic interplay that feels both intimate and exuberant.
Described by Mendelssohn as a ‘blue sky in A major’, his Symphony No 4 captures impressions from his Italian travels: Mediterranean sunshine, religious solemnity, monumental art and architecture, and open countryside. Connected to Mendelssohn through living and working in Leipzig, Benjamin Huth also brings to this performance the perspectives gained from travel, drawing on how music can express both observation and memory.
Manchester Camerata is a registered charity working and performing in Manchester and worldwide since 1972.
Be it opening Glastonbury festival in front of 40,000 people or working intimately in care homes with people living with dementia, we believe in the transformative and connecting nature of music. That connection drives us, and we work with the best creative talent to make this happen.
With our live performances, we play music with no boundaries. From an orchestral rave performed in isolation to over one million people during the Covid-19 pandemic, to touring Mozart in the most beautifully intimate concert halls, or re-imagining classical music with electronic producers at the top of their game, we believe great music is great music and we present this to you at the highest level.
To achieve our artistic excellence and forward-thinking ethos, collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. Led by our visionary Music Director, Gábor Takács-Nagy, we collaborate with diverse international artists, from New Order to Martha Argerich to Aziz Ibrahim to Lewis Capaldi.
