Sunday Concerts at Conway Hall: Sacconi Quartet with David Campbell + Pre‐Concert Talk

About the Event

For over two decades, the Sacconi Quartet have been captivating audiences with their unanimous and compelling ensemble, consistently communicating with a fresh and imaginative approach. Formed in 2001, the four founder members share an unwavering passion for the string quartet repertoire, infectiously reaching out to audiences with their energy and enthusiasm. The Sacconis enjoy a busy international career, performing regularly across the world, at Europe’s major venues, in recordings and on radio broadcasts.

The Sacconi is Quartet in Association at the Royal College of Music and Quartet in Residence for the town of Folkestone. Unchanged since its inception, Sacconi is Britain’s longest‐established string quartet. For their welcome return to Conway Hall, they join one of the UK’s finest clarinettists, David Campbell, to present an eclectic programme including a world premiere, a much‐loved staple of the repertoire, and finally, an underrated gem.

In this pre‐concert talk, composer and classical music author Robert Hugill explores the life and work of Samuel Coleridge‐Taylor. Born mixed‐race to an unmarried mother, Coleridge‐Taylor did not get the best start in life. Thanks to the support of his mother’s musical family, he was studying at the Royal College of Music by the age of 15, he became a pupil of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and went on to create a remarkable body of work including the spectacularly successful trio of cantatas, The Song of Hiawatha. His early Quintet for clarinet & strings was written in response to a challenge from Stanford to his pupils, and the result is an early masterpiece.