2025-26 Concerts

Browse our new season of concerts below

Refreshments are available at the bar at all concerts, but please note that we are only able to accept cash payments

4 July 2025

The Laefer Quartet, Saxophones

GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898 – 1937) arr. Wolfgang Schlei: Three Preludes
ERICA TELISNOR (1998 – ): The Bridge
DENISE ONDISHKO (1960 – ): Star Clusters
JEAN-BAPTISTE SINGLÉE (1812 – 1875): Premier Quatuor pour saxophones Op.53: I. Andante and Allegro, II. Adagio Sostenuto, III. Allegro Vivace, IV. Allegro

Interval

HELEN MAY BUTLER (1867 – 1957) arr. Charlotte Harding: Cosmopolitan America March
CHARLOTTE HARDING (1989 – ): Sub to Street to Scraping the Sky
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882 – 1971) arr. Olaf Mühlenhardt: Circus Polka
ANNA APPLEBY (1993 – ): Electric Aeroplanes
FRANCIS POULENC (1899 – 1963) arr. Tony Davis: Novelette in C Major
GUILLERMO LAGO [Alter-ego of Willem van Merwijk] (1960 – ): Cuidades (Cities) – Sarajevo; Montevideo; Addis Ababa

Note: this concert will take place at All Saints Church, Beckley, TN31 6SE

The Laefer Quartet last played for us in July 2019 at Beckley Church and gave a hugely enjoyable and memorable performance. We are delighted to welcome them again, to open our 2025-26 season. They are regarded as one of the UK’s most exciting and dynamic saxophone quartets and have been at the cutting edge of saxophone chamber music for over a decade, celebrating the extraordinary versatility, virtuosity and scope of the instrument.

Formed in 2012 at the Royal College of Music, the ensemble has performed at some of the UK’s most prestigious concert halls, including Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, St John’s Smith Square, and St David’s Hall. The quartet have been the recipients of numerous awards including Park Lane Group Artists, the Elias Fawcett Ensemble Award for an Outstanding Ensemble in the Royal Over-Seas League Competition and were Making Music Selected Artists.

The musicians embrace new music and have commissioned a diverse body of works from composers such as Howard Skempton, Charlotte Harding, Anna Appleby, Michael Cryne and Alexander Glyde Bates, who share the quartet’s passion for collaborative music-making. New works are performed alongside established pieces and transcriptions, demonstrating the quartet’s range and ability to take on an eclectic repertoire – and six of them were chosen for their 2024 debut album, Strat.

In addition to live performances, the quartet has been invited to give masterclasses for the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain and at a variety of educational establishments, including the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, the University of Southampton.

31 October 2025

Kosta Popovic, Cello with Luke Lally Maguire, Piano

Born into a musical family in Podgorica, Montenegro in 2000, the outstanding young cellist, Kosta Popović, completed his primary and secondary music education at the Vasa Pavić School of Music and Ballet in Podgorica under the tutelage of his father, Professor Mladen Popović.

In April 2017, following his move to the UK, he was awarded The Headmaster’s music scholarship at the prestigious Whitgift School. In September of that year, he won a scholarship to attend the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with the renowned cellist and pedagogue Louise Hopkins, graduating in 2023 (where he is now pursuing his Master’s degree).

A founding member of the award-winning Fibonacci Quartet (who performed for us in our 2024/25 season) he regularly performs as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician in numerous concerts and at music festivals in the UK and abroad. Notable performances include BBC Radio 3 In Tune, Schiermonnikoog Chamber Music Festival and Art Amanti Chamber Music Festival. Most recently Kosta won the 71st Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition (Chamber Music) and The CAVATINA Chamber Music Competition. Kosta’s Postgraduate studies are supported by the Ian Fleming Award, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust Study Grant and the Derek Butler Trust.

Luke Lally Maguire is a London based pianist currently studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he has recently completed his Masters in Performance. Luke is continuing his studies at Guildhall on the Artists’ Diploma Programme under the tutelege of Carole Presland, Charles Owen and Ronan O’Hora. An experienced performer both in competitions and on the concert platform, Luke made his solo recital debut at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, in January 2023. In February 2023, Luke performed at Wigmore Hall as part of the Irish Heritage Music Bursary auditions, where he was the recipient of the Music Bursary for Performance and in 2024, he won first prize in the 2024 Glass Sellers Beethoven Prize at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

A versatile pianist, Luke is also in demand as an accompanist and chamber music player and is a member of Trio Casella, a multiple award winning London-based piano trio.

12 December 2025

Thomas Kelly, Piano

Our Christmas concert this year will be given by the outstanding young pianist Thomas Kelly. Thomas started playing the piano at the age of three and became Kent Junior Pianist of the Year in 2006. At the age of nine, he performed Mozart’s Concerto No. 24 in the Marlowe Theatre with the Kent Concert Orchestra. Following his relocation to Cheshire, his performances regularly won him prizes at music festivals, including the Birmingham Music Festival, 3rd prize at Young Pianist of The North and 1st prize at Warrington Arts Council Initiative for the Development of Music (WACIDOM). In 2021 Thomas was a finalist in the Leeds International Piano Competition and, more recently, was awarded 2nd prize and special prize for best semi-final performance at the Hastings International Piano Competition 2022.

He has also excelled at international competitions, being awarded First Prizes at the Theodor Leschetizky Competition, Lucca Virtuoso e Bel Canto Festival, Pianale International Piano Competition, Kharkiv Assemblies, Royal College of Music (RCM) Joan Chissell Schumann competition, Kendall Taylor Beethoven competition and the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe (BPSE) Intercollegiate Beethoven competition.

His appearances include concerts at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, the Brazilian and Russian embassies in London, Poole Lighthouse Arts Centre, North Norfolk Music Festival, Paris Conservatoire, Bayreuth and Florence, at both the Teatro Del Sale and the British Institute.

Thomas is supported by the Kendall-Taylor award, the Keyboard Charitable Trust (since 2020) and Talent Unlimited (since 2021). He is also the recipient of the Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship 2023-24, which is awarded to an exceptional pianist who has been accepted onto the RCM’s Artist Diploma course. He is currently studying for his Master’s degree at the RCM.

13 February 2026

Mathilde Milwidsky, Violin

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 – 1750): Partita No 3 in E Major, BWV 1006
ARTHUR HONNEGER (1892 – 1955): Sonata for Solo Violin, H. 143
NICOLÒ PAGANINI (1782 – 1840): Caprices

Interval

EUGÈNE-AUGUST YSAŸE (1858 – 1931): Sonata for Solo Violin, No 2 “Obsession” Opus 27
HEINRICH IGNAZ FRANZ BIBER (1644 – 1704) Passagcalia in G Minor
GRAŻYNA BACEWICZ (1909 – 1969): Polish Caprice
NICOLÒ PAGANINI (1782 – 1840): Caprices

A return visit from the sublimely gifted Mathilde Milwidsky (2023 Classic FM Rising Star and One to Watch by Gramophone Magazine). Mathilde has been praised by The Strad’s Charlotte Gardner for her “perfect intonation and beautiful shaping and colouring, comprehensively nailing each new stylistic and emotional universe …”.

She was the only British violinist to be selected for the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition, during which Belgian newspaper Le Soir praised her performance for its “mastery and musicality” and in 2021 and 2022, Mathilde was invited to the Verbier Festival Academy on the Soloist and Chamber Music Programme, as one of only seven violinists chosen worldwide

Her capacity to win prizes seems endless! She was awarded 1st prize in the String Section at the 2017 Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, 1st prize and Audience prize at the 2018 Aurora Music Competition in Sweden, was a semi-finalist laureate of the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition (Hanover) in 2018 and in 2019, won 3rd prize and a special prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition. While studying in Germany, she was awarded the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben’s Musikinstrumentfonds Competition, won 3rd prize in the Bundeweiter Hochschulwettbewerb of the Peter-Pirazzi-Stiftung and the prestigious Deutschlandstipendium scholarship.

Mathilde has worked closely with leading contemporary composers including Brett Dean, Roxana Panufnik, Mark Simpson, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Garth Knox, Huw Watkins, Sally Beamish and Joseph Phibbs.

Mathilde has performed in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Flagey (Brussels), Kings Place, Cadogan Hall and St John’s Smith Square, has frequently appeared on radio, including Scala Radio, BBC Radio 3’s In Tune, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Radio Swiss Classic and is regularly invited to perform at international festivals.

With such a busy schedule, it’s remarkable that Mathilde has managed to find the time to make recordings (two to date). Her debut CD, released in 2020, featured world première recordings of Agnes Zimmerman’s three Sonatas for violin and piano (with pianist Sam Haywood) and on her latest recording (of the Beethoven Romances for Violin and Orchestra) she performs with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Mathilde Milwidsky is also a Professor of Violin at the Royal College of Music.

10 April 2026

Ewan Millar, Oboe with Piano

Ewan is a prominent young oboist with an increasing following in the UK. In 2020, Ewan won the Woodwind final of BBC Young Musician of the Year, advancing to the Grand Final, and gave an “exemplary, richly shaded account” (The Guardian) of Navarro’s Legacy Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic. Since the competition he has been performing as a soloist in recitals around the UK, appearing at the Windsor, Cheltenham, and Lake District Summer Music Festivals. In 2025, he won the Wind, Brass, Percussion category final of the Royal Over-Seas League Competition.

As a freelancer, Ewan has performed (as a soloist) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Birmingham Royal Ballet, London Concertante and has played in the orchestra of the Philharmonia, BBC Phil, Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra and Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ewan took his undergraduate course at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford and his postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Bicentennial prize, the Janet Craxton Memorial Prize and the Departmental Oboe prize. He studied primarily with Melanie Ragge, while also receiving lessons from Christopher Cowie and Patrick Flanaghan to master the Cor Anglais.

Ewan’s long-time collaborative pianist is the exciting young soloist Tomos Boyles and he is also a member of the award-winning quintet Lumas Winds. Beyond his classical career as an oboist, he is also a jazz pianist, gigging regularly in bars and restaurants around Oxford and London.

Ewan is an artist with both the Tillett Debut and Countess of Munster Recital Schemes, which help to secure further recital opportunities around the country. Ewan plays a Howarth XM Oboe, which the Gerald Finzi Trust kindly helped him to purchase.

2025-26 Season