• “The reasons for Britten Sinfonia’s incremental rise in the past 20 years are various, but among them are a commitment to interesting programmes and the assiduous building of relationships”

  Financial Times

• “The playing was marked by the kind of luminous and infectious beauty that only comes from a true marriage of mastery and love”

  The Guardian

• “The UK’s most consistently dynamic chamber ensemble”

  The New Statesman

• “I haven’t heard a chamber orchestra performing with such extrovert character and unflagging energy for years.”

  The Times

• “But as always with this orchestra there was more to savour than just stellar perfomance. The programme was ingeniously shaped.”

  The Daily Telegraph, Ivan Hewett

For Musicians

Young musicians

Britten Sinfonia has developed relationships with a number of schools and youth orchestras over the years, and offers regular coaching sessions for young musicians. Talented instrumentalists from Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge benefit from chamber music coaching from some of Britten Sinfonia’s most experienced principal players.

Music students

Britten Sinfonia works in partnership with the music departments at Cambridge University and Anglia Ruskin University, as well as the Krakow Academy of Music in Poland and a number of other Higher Education institutions. Our annual Composers’ Workshop offers Cambridge University students the opportunity to have their works performed by musicians from Britten Sinfonia and discussed by established composers. This year, young American composer Nico Muhly will be coaching the students.

Links

If you want to find out more about music and musicians, the SoundJunction website is a fantastic and ever-growing resource. And you might see some familiar faces whilst you’re there. You can listen to Britten Sinfonia performing David Horne’s Emerging Dances, and find out all sorts of information about the piece.

Budding instrumentalists can also find out how Ben Chappell got started on the cello, what made Joy Farrall take up the clarinet, and why Clare Finnimore switched from violin to viola. If you are interested in instruments, you can watch Simon Gunton introduce the many and varied characters of the trombone; find out from Miranda Dale how a violin bow works; or see Steve Williams show you the bigger equivalent on the double bass.

And anyone interested in a musical career can find out what it’s like for percussionist David Hockings and harpist Lucy Wakeford. Finally, bassoonist Gareth Twigg dishes the dirt on what it’s really like to play for Britten Sinfonia!

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