After welcoming the Waldstein Quartet last year, St Mary North Stoke this year welcomes the Ensemble Augelletti on Saturday, July 27 as part of their summer tour.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely today
00:06to speak to Owen Fowkes from the Ensemble Angeletti and lovely to see that you are heading
00:12our way. You're coming to St Mary's, South Stoke on Saturday, July 27th, in the middle
00:19of a fantastic year for you. Tell me about the scheme that you've become part of at the
00:23start of this year and why it matters.
00:26Well, we were very fortunate to be chosen to be part of the BBC New Generation Baroque
00:33Ensemble Scheme. So we have the support from BBC Radio 3 and also the Royal College of
00:40Music and the National Centre of Early Music in York. And those three organisations have
00:45been working with us, giving us coaching on our playing and also the way that we present
00:51our concerts and giving us some concerts in each of those venues and also radio time
00:57on Radio 3, which is the exposure, isn't it? It's getting yourself out there, presumably.
01:04Yeah, and helping us to bring our programmes and bring our stories to more people, I think.
01:10And that's, it's invaluable to be able to.
01:13And you just said the crucial word, stories, because the really appealing sounding thing
01:18about the ensemble is that you give context, don't you? You tell the stories. How does that work?
01:24Well, we have so much extraordinary music from the 18th century, music that we really
01:29love and moves us in so many different ways. But a lot of that music was commissioned by
01:36specific people and it was music designed for particular performers working in spaces
01:42where they knew the audiences very well. So the music always has incredible everyday stories
01:48around it. And that's one of the things that we really enjoy exploring in our programmes.
01:53We want to tell you the stories of the 18th century trumpeter who ended up in a debtor's
01:59prison and wrote a diary of what he was playing and where. We want to share the stories of
02:03people who went to buy this music in churchyards and put it together.
02:07Are these stories easy to find?
02:09There's quite a lot of evidence left. People sort of write down everyday things and
02:16if you look for it, it's there. And we very much enjoy that.
02:19That sounds fantastic. So what does that add to the music then, the fact that we have that context, do you think?
02:27Well, I think sometimes it gives you a little bit of an extra dimension because some of the music can be
02:33perhaps a little bit unfamiliar and some of the composers you might never have heard of.
02:37We've all heard of Handel and Bach and Vivaldi, but for some of the people in our programme this time you might never have heard of, for example, Mrs Philharmonica.
02:46I was going to ask you, do we know anything about Mrs Philharmonica?
02:51Well, obviously Mrs Philharmonica is a pen name of some kind.
02:55You would hope so, yes.
02:56Yeah. And her music was published in 1715 in St Paul's churchyard. And so we've done a little bit of a research project to find out
03:08who she could have possibly been and come up with a few names. So we'll ask our audience's opinion.
03:14But presumably part of the appeal is we will never know for sure, will we?
03:18Some things are best as a mystery, perhaps. But it's fun to speculate.
03:24Absolutely. Well, it sounds a lovely concert. You will be at St Mary's South Stoke on Saturday, July 27th.
03:31Lovely to speak to you and have a great time there.
03:34Good to talk to you.
03:35Thank you for having us.
03:36Bye-bye.