Julian Azkoul artistic director & violins
Ariel Lang violins
Kay Stephen viola
Raphael Lang cello
Marianne Schofield bass

Programme:
Caroline Shaw — Entr’acte [Quintet]
Osvaldo Golijov — Tenebrae [Quartet]
Luigi Boccherini (arr. Azkoul) — Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid [Quintet]
Tchaikovsky — Andante Cantabile [Quintet]
Shostakovich — String Quartet no.8 in C Minor [Quintet]

This concert takes place at St Christopher’s Church, St Christopher's Green, Haslemere, GU27 1DD.

Tickets are available to purchase via the Tickets page.

The United Strings of Europe presents a dynamic programme featuring highlights from its critically-acclaimed recordings. A hallmark of the ensemble’s approach, several of the pieces are performed in bespoke arrangements, with the addition of the double bass enriching the ensemble’s sound.

Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte, inspired by a performance of Haydn’s music by the Brentano Quartet, is emblematic of the composer’s style and has fast become a modern classic. Structured like a minuet and trio, it suddenly takes you ‘to the other side of Alice’s looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolor transition’.

Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile, a gem from his String Quartet No. 1, conjures the intimate setting of a 19th-century drawing room with just the right amount of pathos. The ensemble’s recording of the work in an original arrangement for string orchestra is one of the group’s most popular tracks online.

Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae is a meditation following the Sept 11th attacks in the USA. Inspired by Couperin’s Leçons de ténèbres and a visit to the New York Planetarium, Golijov observed that ‘the compositional challenge was to write music that would sound as an orbiting spaceship that never touches ground’. Like the Earth viewed from afar, the music offers a "beautiful" surface but, from a metaphorically closer distance, one can hear it is full of pain.

Boccherini’s uproarious Music of the Night of the streets of Madrid, presents scenes from 18th-century Spain ranging from the rounds of the night guard to blind beggars playing in the street. The United Strings of Europe ups the ante with some unexpected stylistic twists and turns.

Dimitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 is a towering masterwork of the latter half of the 20th Century. Inspired by a visit to war-torn Dresden, the work is dedicated to the ‘victims of fascism and war’. It is also an extraordinarily personal work for the composer with a musical motif made up of his initials DSCH permeating the entire work.

Julian Azkoul
Anglo-Lebanese violinist Julian Azkoul is in demand as an ensemble leader, soloist and collaborator, appearing as guest director of the Britten Sinfonia, Camerata, Nordica and Archets du Léman, and guest leader of the Ulster Orchestra, Façade Ensemble, Chineke!, Riot Ensemble, Camerata Venia and Nexus Orchestra. He has appeared as first violinist of the Jubilee and Piatti string quartets and co-led UK orchestras including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Hallé, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Manchester Collective. He is the artistic director of the multinational string ensemble United Strings of Europe, curating programmes and arranging music for the ensemble.

The United Strings of Europe
The United Strings of Europe (USE) creates musical experiences that celebrate diversity and bridge cultural divides. Praised for its original programming and ‘virtuosically expressive’ playing (The Times), the London-based ensemble commissions and arranges music from a variety of cultural backgrounds and performs regularly in Europe and the Middle East. USE’s acclaimed recordings for BIS Records include Renewal - Editor’s Choice at Presto Music and one of Apple Music’s ‘10 Albums You Must Hear’, and Tchaikovsky - BBC Music Magazine’s Orchestral Choice in February 2023. Through the Night showcased the world premiere recording of Daniel Kidane's Be Still alongside new arrangements of works by Maddalena Casulana, Carlo Gesualdo, and Richard Strauss, and garnered them further critical acclaim for ‘dissolving a lot of conventions in both programming and performance. (Gramophone.) Spring 2025 will see the release of Hommages: an album bringing together composers from Europe and the Americas (Golijov, Stravinsky, Tabakova, Mustonen), inspired by dreams and recollections of the past.

Hugo Svedberg cello
Samantha Carrasco piano

Programme:
Beethoven — Cello Sonata no.3 in A major, Op. 69
Bruch — Kol Nidrei
Debussy — Cello Sonata
Fauré — Papillon, Op. 77

This concert takes place at St Christopher’s Church, St Christopher’s Green, Haslemere, GU27 1DD.

Access to the concert is free with a retiring collection for the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice.

Tickets are available to reserve via the Tickets page.

Semi-finalist of the BBC Young Musician 2024 Competition and prizewinner at the Haslemere String Competition 2023, Hugo Svedberg comes from Bournemouth and began playing the cello aged six. He currently studies cello with Adrian Brendel and has been a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Hugo has won several competitions, including the Two Moors Festival Competition, the Bromsgrove Young Musicians Senior Platform and the 2024 Swedish ‘Pole Star’ Prize. He is a music and academic scholar at Canford School in Dorset.

Hugo plays a fine Tecchler cello on loan from a generous sponsor through the Beare’s International Violin Society.

Pianist Samantha Carrasco explores a diverse and flexible repertoire as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. Notable performances as a soloist have included Grieg, Schumann, Tchaikovsky No.1, Rachmaninoff No.2, Mozart K466, K467 and K488 and Beethoven 3rd and 5th piano concertos. As orchestral pianist with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, highlights have included performing at the BBC Proms in 2017, Stravinsky’s Petrushka with Carlos Miguel Prieto, and broadcasting Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony live on BBC Radio 3 under Yan Pascal Tortelier. She has also contributed to live broadcasts on the radio and recordings with the BSO for Chandos and Onyx.

Alongside her performing career, Samantha continues to pursue her commitment to education. She participates in BSO education projects, and is an examiner, trainer, moderator and accompanist for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, working nationally and internationally in classical music, diplomas and jazz. She presents teaching and examining seminars on behalf of ABRSM in China, the USA and the UK. Samantha is the Head of Keyboard at Peter Symonds College, Winchester, contributing heavily to the Hampshire Specialist Music Course there. She is also the piano consultant for King Edward VI School, Southampton. She coaches chamber ensembles and adjudicates music competitions as well as hosting masterclasses for pianists, accompanists and ensemble groups.

This concert is kindly supported by HRTCT.

Programme:
Beethoven — Sonata Op. 31 no.2
Stephen Hough — Sonata no.3
Shostakovich — Selection of Preludes and Fugues
No.5
No.3
No.4
No.7
No.24

This concert takes place at St Christopher’s Church, St Christopher's Green, Haslemere, GU27 1DD.

Tickets are available to purchase via the Tickets page.

Emanuil Ivanov attracted international attention after receiving the First prize at the 2019 Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition in Italy. This achievement was followed by concert engagements in some of the world's most prestigious halls including Teatro alla Scala in Milan and Herculessaal in Munich.

Emanuil Ivanov was born in 1998 in the town of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria. From an early age he demonstrated a keen interest and love for music. He regards the presence of symphonic music, especially that of Gustav Mahler, as tremendously influential in his musical upbringing during his childhood. He started piano lessons with Galina Daskalova in his hometown around the age of seven. He later studied in and graduated from the Bertolt Brecht language high school in Pazardzhik. Ivanov studied with renowned bulgarian pianist Atanas Kurtev from 2013 to 2018. He is currently studying on a full scholarship at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire under the tutelage of Pascal Nemirovski and Anthony Hewitt.

Ivanov has won prizes in competitions such as "Alessandro Casagrande", "Scriabin-Rachmaninoff", "Liszt-Bartok", "Young virtuosos" and "Jeunesses International Music Competition Dinu Lipatti". He was also awarded the honorary Crystal Iyre and teh Young Musician of the Year Award - some of the most prestigious awards in Bulgaria. In 2022, he received the honorary Silver Medal of the London Musicians' Company and later in the same year became a recipient of the Carnwath Piano Scholarship.

His participation in masterclasses include those of Dmitri Bashkirov, Dmitri Alexeev, Sir Stephen Hough, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Peter Donohoe, etc.

Hagam Shaham violin
Arnon Erez piano
Raphael Wallfisch cello

Programme:
Mozart — Piano Trio in E major, K.542
Shostakovich — Piano Trio no.2, Op. 67
Grieg — Andante con moto, EG 116
Dvořák — Piano Trio no.4 in E minor, Op. 90, B.166 "Dumky"

This concert takes place at St Bartholomew’s Church, Haslemere, GU27 1BP.

Tickets are available for purchase via the Tickets page.

"…the performers brought a spontaneity and freshness to the music with the inventive nature of the material really shining through. Overall, this was an evening of first rate music making and the performances of the Arensky and Brahms trios were exceptionally fine.”
Seen & Heard International

Trio Shaham Erez Wallfisch was founded in 2009 and comprises three of the finest international instrumentalists performing today: world renowned cellist Raphael Wallfisch alongside the outstanding talents of Hagai Shaham (violin) and Arnon Erez (piano).

Since its formation, the Trio has been invited numerous times to prestigious chamber music series at venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Rotterdam De Doellen, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie.

Trio Shaham Erez Wallfisch has an exclusive contract with Nimbus Records with releases to date including the Mendelssohn trios and works by Ravel, Arenski, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov. The trio's most recent release, a recording of Dvorak: Piano Trio no.3 (2023) was described in a 5 star review by BBC Music Magazine as showing "passionate engagement with the work's stirring rhetoric... beautifully nuanced."

HHH Concerts, in association with Haslemere Festival, in aid of the Meath Epilepsy Charity, Godalming

Programme:
J.S. Bach — Goldberg Variations, BWV 988

This concert takes place at St Christopher’s Church, St Christopher's Green, Haslemere, GU27 1DD.

Tickets are available for purchase via the Tickets page.

Angela Hewitt occupies a unique position among today’s leading pianists. With a wide-ranging repertoire and frequent appearances in recital and with major orchestras throughout Europe, Americas and Asia, she is also an award-winning recording artist whose performances of Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters. In 2020 she received the City of Leipzig Bach Medal: a huge honour that for the first time in its 17-year history was awarded to a woman.

In March 2024, Hewitt embarked on her latest major project entitled ​‘The Mozart Odyssey’, comprising the composer’s complete piano concertos, first appearing with Pierre Bleuse and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. This follows Hewitt’s highly acclaimed Bach Odyssey cycle (2016 – 22), in which she performed the complete keyboard works of Bach across 12 recitals, also presented worldwide. The Mozart project continues in 2024/25 with a variety of engagements spanning nine countries; conductor-led performances include the Brussels Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, NAC (Ottawa), Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony and Ulster orchestras, among others. Hewitt is also much in demand as a play-conductor, collaborating with the Cameristi della Scala, Bochumer Symphoniker, Royal Northern Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Mozart Odyssey. She has previously led Hong Kong and Copenhagen philharmonic orchestras, Lucerne Festival Strings, Zurich, Basel, Swedish and Stuttgart Chamber orchestras, Salzburg Camerata, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in New York, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan, and Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein.