Ensemble Reza at the Festival of Chichester

Ensemble Reza have been one of the great West Sussex musical success stories in recent years.
Ensemble RezaEnsemble Reza
Ensemble Reza

They are back again for the 2018 Festival of Chichester, offering two concerts on the same day.

On Saturday, June 23 from 2-3pm they offer their family concert Around The World With Music And Dance at St John’s Chapel, St John’s Street, Chichester, a chance for the whole family to join virtuoso musicians for jigs, reels, tangos and polkas from around the world. Adults £8; children and students under 18 £5; children aged three and under free.

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And then, at 7pm, Ensemble Reza will be back for Romantic Gems, a programme of unknown but beautiful music, introduced by cellist Pavlos Carvalho. They are promising an unforgettable journey including: Halversen – Passacaglia for Violin and Viola (after Handel); Beethoven – String Trio in C Minor; and Dohnanyi – String Sextet in B Flat major. Tickets £15; students and under 18s £5.

“I think we are now in our fifth or sixth year,” says Pavlos. “We have certainly been going for quite some time, and despite our busy lives and busy schedules with other things, we seem to be getting busier and busier. If we could make this our main way of earning our bread, then we definitely would! It has developed into something that is able to encompass so many different things.

“Logistically and practically, it was all about playing music with people that we wanted to play with. We have all reached the age where we have got families, and you can’t always be going up to London, all that time to travel and then three hours for rehearsals and then travelling back. However remarkable the place you are playing, there is a point where the performance of the music becomes more important as a way of getting together with people that you want to be with. We did our first concert in a church in Haywards Heath, and it was a challenging programme, but we played to a full church and we played in front of a church full of people whose faces we recognised and it was just amazing to feel that connection, to have that atmosphere. The big realisation for me was that it doesn’t matter how world famous or important the venue is that you are playing in. All that matters is that you are playing the repertoire that you want to play with people that you want to play with in front of a willing and friendly audience. You don’t have to be in the Royal Albert Hall or the Wigmore Hall, though obviously those are fantastic. You can play in a little church if you are playing what you want to play in front of people who appreciate the music you want to play.”

Online: www.thenovium.org/boxoffice; [email protected]; 01243 816525 or 775888.

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