Saturday 7 June 2025 – 6:30pm

Ensemble deNOTE

Katy Bircher (flute)

Marcus Barcham-Stevens (violin)

Oliver Wilson (viola)

Ruth Alford (cello)

PROGRAMME

The programme will include

W.A. Mozart – Flute Quartet in D major K.258

W.A. Mozart – Prelude & fugue for String Trio K.404a No3 

Francois Devienne – Flute quartet in B minor Op.16 No.3
Francois Devienne – Duo for flute and viola Op.5 No.4

Final details of the complete programme will be posted on the webpage nearer the time of the concert, but will include more music by Mozart and Devienne.

After the concert canapés and refreshments will be served in the candlelit church.

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Suggested donations – £25 (£28 if paid on the door)
Payment by BACS available (and preferred) or by cheque in favour of “Langton with Sutterby Parochial Church Council” c/o Langton Cottage, Langton, Spilsby, PE23 4PU.
Email: webmaster@langton-by-spilsby.org.uk
Tel: 01790 753649; 01790 753561; 07809 619401

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ENSEMBLE de NOTE

Founded in 2010 as the resident ensemble at The University of London’s Institute of Musical Research, Ensemble DeNOTE has gained a nationwide reputation for its commitment to creative reinterpretations of classical chamber music played on period instruments. The Ensemble’s recordings of Mozart and Beethoven have gained 5* reviews in the national press.

The Ensemble is a community of creators passionate about exploring the sound worlds and expressive potential of music from Bach to Brahms, inspired by past performance traditions but reinterpreted for today. A commitment to historical instruments and musical performance styles drives the Ensemble to revisit familiar landmarks of chamber music and to open up fresh dialogues in performance – all backed up by the latest scholarly research. DeNOTE’s programming begins with classical era chamber music (broadly 1750-1820) and it explores a wide breadth and variety of repertoire, including quintets, quartets, trios and duos by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and their Viennese contemporaries while also reaching back into the baroque and forwards to the romantic periods.

Katy Bircher (Flute)

Katy Bircher is a specialist in early flutes and has worked with most UK-based early music groups in repertoire ranging from Dowland to Wagner. As a soloist she has played concertos with the Dunedin Consort, the Academy of Ancient Music, La Serenissima, and Concerto Copenhagen in Europe, the United States and the Far East. Following her Gramophone Award-winning recording of Vivaldi concertos, ‘The French Connection’, with La Serenissima, she was selected to give the first performance and recording of the newly discovered ‘Il Gran Mogul’ concerto by Vivaldi. She has contributed to many critically acclaimed orchestral recordings as principal flute, notably Haydn’s The Creation with the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Bach’s Mass in B minor with Concerto Copenhagen and St John Passion with the Dunedin Consort. She teaches Baroque flute at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Centre for Early Music Performance and Research at Birmingham University, and has given masterclasses in the UK and abroad.

Marcus Barcham Stevens (violin)

Marcus is co-leader of the Britten Sinfonia and Principal 2nd Violin of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has broadcast as a soloist on BBC Radio 3, played with the Nash Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, and performed chamber music with Freddy Kempf, Peter Donohoe, Paul Lewis, Alina Ibragimova, Leon McCawley, Paul Watkins, and with Thomas Adès as pianist in music by Adès. Marcus has also played with Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s orchestras ORR/EBS, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Jonathan Cohen’s ensemble Arcangelo. He is also a composer: “Dhyana” for soprano and ensemble was described by George Hall (the Guardian, 2011) as “hugely impressive”.

Oliver Wilson (viola)

After reading Classics at Clare College, Cambridge, Oliver studied at Edsberg Kammarmusik Institutionen in Sweden. Since then he has pursued a diverse career as a viola player on both modern and period instruments. Oliver plays regularly as principal viola with groups such as The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dunedin Consort, The English Concert and Arcangelo. Since 2017 he has been the principal viola of the orchestra of the Gaechinger Cantorey in Stuttgart. As a modern viola player, Oliver has played several programmes from memory with acclaimed Aurora Orchestra. Recent recording projects include multiple CDs of the first year cycle of Bach’s Leipzig cantatas from 1723/4 with the Gaechinger Cantorey, several albums of Vivaldi with La Serenissima, and Mozart’s C minor mass with Dunedin Consort.

RUTH ALFORD (cello)

Ruth thrives on a broad musical diet from Baroque to Contemporary, and from solo and chamber music, through to full-scale operatic and symphonic repertoire. Educated in Middlesbrough, Manchester University and the Royal Academy of Music, where she was awarded various prizes for solo and chamber music, she became a principal player in English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as well as working with BBC Symphony Orchestra.
As a member of Ensemble DeNOTE and period quartet, The Revolutionary Drawing Room she has made several acclaimed CD recordings.

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Note that the Langton Concerts have become increasingly well known and it is very advisable to book early to avoid disappointment as there are normally few, if any, spaces available on the door on the day of the concerts themselves.

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