Take Note
Take Note is the Chiltern Arts Young Artist Platform, discovering and championing outstanding young ensembles. Each year we invite applications to decide who we will work with and promote in the coming season. Successful applicants will be offered a paid performance at the Festival.
The 2020 Artists are named below. Please refer to this page for updates regarding applications for future festivals.
After an unprecedented number of applications to the Take Note scheme this year, we were delighted to welcome our three outstanding ensembles to the 2020 Festival:
The Magnard Ensemble Ensemble Hesperi The Salomé Quartet
Since 2012 the Magnard Ensemble has built a reputation for delivering high-quality performances and dynamic educational projects. Making their international debut at the Culture & Convention Centre Lucerne, Switzerland in January 2017, they have appeared at venues ranging from Wigmore Hall and St Martin-in-the-Fields, to festivals and societies nationwide. As well as holding fellowships with the Royal Academy of Music and Wigmore Hall Learning, the Ensemble have been selected artists for the CAVATINA Chamber Music, Tillett and Tunnell Trusts.
During 2016 their ‘Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music’ project was launched to celebrate Roald Dahl's centenary, in partnership with Paul Patterson, Martin Butler, City Music Foundation and Music Link International. Featured on BBC Radio 3, the Ensemble toured and released an accompanying recording with Orchid Classics. 2019/20 sees the release of two discs dedicated to the music of Stephen Dodgson on Toccata Classics, as well as appearances at the Bridgewater Hall, Snape Maltings, and other venues nationwide.
Salomé Quartet is a multinational ensemble formed in 2016 by four prizewinning students of the Royal College of Music in London: Haim Choi, Ines Delgado, Kasia Ziminska and Shizuku Tatsuno. The musicians have performed worldwide in venues including Muzikverein (Vienna), Mozarteum (Salzburg), Unesco Hall (Paris), Lutoslawski Concert Studio (Warsaw), Tel Aviv Opera House (Israel), as well as Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall and
Cadogan Hall in London.
In 2017 the quartet won the RCM String Quartet Competition, Helen Just & Susan Cornell Prize and the Sacconi Quartet Prize, and was invited as the Quartet in Residence at Oundle School.
This season the group appeared at Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican Centre, Wigmore Hall, Studiomusic at Brightlingsea, Sacconi Chamber Music Festival, Keshet Eilon Festival in Israel, among others, as well as an Artistic Residency at the Leighton House Museum.
Ensemble Hesperi is a dynamic and innovative London-based Early Music ensemble, dedicated to showcasing the infectious charm and dazzling virtuosity of eighteenth century Scottish music through imaginative programming and collaboration with other art forms. In 2019, the ensemble embarked on a unique project, ‘The Pheasant’s Eye’, featuring Highland dancer Kathleen Gilbert, supported by a Lottery grant from Arts Council England. This project will also create educational resources based on Scottish composer James Oswald’s ‘Airs for the Seasons’, a collection of 96 floral airs, each named after a flower or plant. In February 2019, the ensemble was featured by Classical Music Magazine and recorded in studio for Classic FM; they were also selected as Britten Pears Young Artists for 2020 on the ‘Chamber Music in Residence’ programme. Ensemble Hesperi performs regularly for those who have no opportunity to hear live classical music through the prestigious outreach scheme ‘Live Music Now’. The ensemble has also developed a strong relationship with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s charity, CW+: they were honoured to be invited to present two Handel Concerti Grossi at the celebration service for the Tercentenary of the hospital in May 2019 at Westminster Abbey.
Previous Winners
echo came together in early 2017 as former members of Genesis Sixteen, a prestigious young artists programme run by one of the world’s greatest musical ensembles, The Sixteen, under Harry Christophers CBE.
Described as “Transformative, a breath of fresh air to the British choral scene”, echo aim to produce accessible, innovative performances of the highest quality, whilst challenging some of the preconceptions associated with choral music. Alongside the acoustic implications, the name stems from the idea of art being a reflection of society and politics.
Recent concerts include a performance at the National Gallery as part of the The Sixteen’s ‘Sound Sublime’ festival, and a collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Magnus Lindberg at St. John Smith’s Square.
echo performed at the very first Chiltern Arts Festival on 4th February 2018 in Henley-on-Thames.
A4 Brass Quartet is based at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (studying as an ensemble for the International Artist Diploma in Chamber Music) and is comprised of principal players from some of the UK’s leading brass bands, including the world-famous Grimethorpe Colliery and Foden’s bands.
The quartet perform concerts and masterclasses all over the UK and abroad, and 2015 saw the first mainland European excursion for A4 Brass as they performed in the Trakai Fanfare Week in Lithuania. In February 2017, they toured the Channel Islands, performing in Jersey, Alderney and Guernsey and in the same month were selected for the Tillett Trust Young Artists’ Platform. A4 also were finalists in the 2017 Royal Over-Seas League Chamber Music competition, receiving the Elias Fawcett Award for an Outstanding Ensemble.
A4 Brass Quartet performed at the Chiltern Arts Festival on 7th February 2018 at Holy Trinity Church in Penn Street.
Flauti d’echo was founded in 2016 by recorder players Tabea Debus and Olwen Foulkes who met during their studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Performing music from the 15th century to commissioning new pieces, the ensemble aims to extend a historical recorder player’s tradition of arranging and transcribing music appropriate to their instrument. The group specialise in creating bespoke programmes that combine their own arrangements with music originally written for their instrumentation.
Flauti d'echo were joined at Chiltern Arts by keyboard player Benedict Williams for a stunning programme exploring the variety of colours that emerge when one musical line traces in the exact footsteps of another. With playful mirroring, haunting reflections and virtuosic imitations, these threeoutstanding young musicians took us on a contemplative journey, featuring themusic of Handel, J.S. Bach, Purcell and Telemann.
This excellent trio performed at the second Chiltern Arts Festival on Thursday 14th February 2019 at the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Hughenden.
