CLoSer FAQs

Did you miss our first CLoSer series at Village Underground? Don't worry, because we're back for a second series, starting next month. If you're new to CLoSer and want to find out more, then here is everything you need to know...

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What is CLoSer?
CLoSer is our popular informal concert series, which takes place at Village Underground in Shoreditch. This series there are three concerts on 19 September, 13 February and 10 April and all are designed for both the complete beginner and the classical music enthusiast.

What happens at a CLoSer gig?
The clue’s in the name – these concerts give you a chance to get closer to the music and the musicians. CLoSer concerts are short, informal and intimate. Village Underground is far removed from the traditional concert halls and churches you usually find classical music in. There are no rows of seating and no stage. Instead we scatter the floor with cushions so that you can relax, get comfy and closer to the music.

Cushions

What kind of music is performed at CLoSer concerts?
We perform a wide variety of music from Bach to Stravinsky, from jazz to tango and have a diverse range of Guest Artists at each concert. There are ‘talking' programme notes throughout the performance, so you don't need to know anything about the composers, music or performers beforehand.

Is it going to be really formal?
This concert series is designed to appeal to those who like their live music experiences to be intimate and informal and enjoy a glass of wine while listening! There is no traditional concert seating so you can sit on beanbags or stand and there's no dress code so you can wear whatever you like.

Trumpets

Can I take a drink into the concert?
Yes, of course. The bar opens at 6.45pm and remains open throughout the performance.

How long does the concert last?
Each concert lasts 75 minutes, with no interval.

How much are the tickets?
Tickets for each CLoSer concert are just £15 which includes a free drink from the bar! If you are aged 16-25 years old, whether you are a student or not, you are eligible to sign up for our FIVER scheme which entitles you to tickets for just FIVE POUNDS. We also do Early Bird tickets for just £1. Early Birds are now sold out for September’s concert – you have to get in there fast!

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In partnership with Spitalfields Music and Village Underground.

Ahead of our new CLoSer series starting next month, this week City of London Sinfonia will be taking over the Spitalfields blog. Check back daily for more CLoSer news.

Images: James Berry and Clare Parker

CLoSer - the final review

We asked Anna our new Marketing Intern to give us her review of our final CLoSer this series...

The final instalment in this year’s first CLoSer concert series at Village Underground, Shoreditch, brought together a great selection of jazz inspired repertoire performed by our multi-talented musicians and conducted by Clark Rundell. As the title suggests, the CLoSer series enables the audience to get up close and personal with the players, both during and after the performance, in a less traditional concert setting.

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The dimly lit venue was the perfect location for this jazz finale which featured Darius Milhaud, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Gwilym Simcock on the programme. With two of the three composers present (I’m positive that Milhaud would have shown his face had he been alive!) this really was a special and intimate evening. The informal and relaxed surroundings encouraged audience members to prop themselves up against the wall, perch on seats, lounge on cushions and lean against the bar, creating the perfect atmosphere for the music to follow.

Opening the programme was Milhaud’s jazz inspired La Création du Monde. Based on African folk mythology, the music was powerful, evocative and, at times, pleasantly chaotic. This was followed by Turnage’s masterpiece for viola, Eulogy. If anybody could make the viola cool it would be Turnage, most recently known for his opera on Anna Nicole, along with our  principal viola and soloist for the evening, Fiona Bonds. With intriguing and beautiful melodies, the music lured the audience into a more tranquil state.

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There were obviously many fans of the Mercury Prize nominee and jazz pianist Gwilym Simcock in the room, all eagerly waiting to hear his new composition Move, written specifically for this occasion. The three-movements were appropriately titled Clunky, Columns and Industrial, which Gwilym noted were comparable to the underground brick location in which he was performing. His mesmerising playing and brilliant improvisation skills were totally mind blowing creating a buzzing high on which to end the evening.

Described by audience members as the “best club-classical experience so far”, the first CLoSer series has been both informative and inspiring, and the next series looks to be equally exciting.

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CLoSer 19 September, 7.30pm
Village Underground, Shoreditch

Music by Copland, Stravinsky & Piazzolla
Michael Collins, conductor/clarinet
Katona Twins, guitar duo

BOOKING NOW OPEN: 020 7377 1362/spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk
Tickets: £15 or Early Birds £1

Images: James Berry

 

Spotlight on...Mark-Anthony Turnage

Our final CLoSer concert on Wednesday 25 April includes a performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage's masterpiece for viola:Eulogy. But who is this most prolific of English composers? Here's a quick snapshot:

Name
Mark-Anthony Turnage 

Age
51 

Nationality
British

Background
Studied at the Royal College of Music where he met composer and conductor Oliver Knussen, who was to become his tutor, Won a scholarship to study with Gunther Schuller and Hans Werner Henze at Tanglewood in America.

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Breakthrough moment
Greek, his first opera, which received a triumphant premiere in 1988 and his many ensuing productions worldwide established his international reputation. However he is probably most widely known outside of classical music for his opera Anna Nicole, which tells the story of the rise and fall of the late glamour model, which was staged at the Royal Opera House in 2010. 

CLoSer performance
Eulogy
A miniature viola concerto accompanied by small ensemble. Turnage is known for his complete absorption of jazz elements into a contemporary classical style as this piece reflects. 

Listen to our Turnage greatest hits playlist on Spotify.

CLoSer: Jazz Finale
Weds 25 April, 7.30pm
Village Underground, Shoreditch

Tickets: £15 (includes a free drink)
Box Office: 020 7377 1362/spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

 

Conquering the Antarctic - The Place

Ahead of our Conquering the Antarctic concert tour, starting next month, we're immersing ourselves in all things Antarctic. Here are some interesting facts about the most mysterious and fascinating of continents...

 

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  • The Antarctic is the world’s highest, driest, coldest and windiest continent (as well as the last to be discovered).
  • Ancient Greek geographers were the first to guess there was a large landmass around the South Pole. They named it Anti-Arkitkos (‘the opposite of the Arctic’).
  • Wind speeds of up to 351km (218 miles) per hour have been recorded.
  • In 1983, the coldest temperature ever was recorded at a freezing -89.2 degrees Celsius (-128.56 degrees Fahrenheit).
  • The distance between the UK and Antarctica is 11,000 miles (17702.784 km).
  • Ice in the middle of the continent can be up to 2500m (2 miles) thick.
  • Antarctica is more than 58 times bigger than Great Britain.
  • The pole moves with the ice at the rate of ten metres per year – each summer it has to be put back to its rightful geographical place.
  • Antarctic ice sheets store 70% of the world’s fresh water.
  • In Antarctica’s Dry Valleys, less than 6cm (2.4 in) of snow falls in a whole year.
  • Although there are no trees, more than 100 million birds nest and breed on the Antarctic.
  • Today, around 1,200 people spend the winter on Antarctica – about a third are scientists and the rest are support staff.
  • On average, ice sheets are nearly 2.5km (1.5 miles) thick – that’s the same as ten Canary Wharf towers on top of each other.
  • Thanks to high levels of oxygen in the water, sea spiders grow up to 30cm (12 in) across!

Conquering the Antarctic - the Scott Centenary Concert Tour

A celebration in music, words and images

Stephen Layton, conductor
Robert Murray, tenor
Hugh Bonneville, narrator

3-8 February and 3 March 2012

CLoSer in words and pictures

Our first CLoSer concert at Village Underground on the 22nd November was a huge success with a packed audience enjoying the venue, music and fantastic musicianship on show. We thought we'd share with you some of the best photos from the night and what the audience had to say:

 "The first CLoSer programme was like a substantial sandwich: hot crusty wholemeal bread on the outside with something sweeter in the middle." 

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"Great performance - loved the informal setting and the mixed audience!" 

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 "The orchestra played on all my emotional strings." 

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"I loved the sense of excitement, the bar, the lighting, the chatter and the informal approach of the musicians and conductor. Acoustics were great too."

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 "Give us more!!"

The next concert in the series focuses on vocal music by Bach, Poulenc and Stravinsky with Guest Artists the Holst Singers and our Principal Conductor Stephen Layton.

CloSer
Wednesday 29th February, 7.30pm,
Village Underground,
EC2A

Tickets: £15 (includes a free drink)
Box office: 020 7377 1362/spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

Images: Clare Parker

Concert Focus - Nicholas Maw

A former student of Lennox Berkeley and Nadia Boulanger, Nicholas Maw was one of the great British composers to emerge in the late 1950s/early 1960s. A contemporary of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir Harrison Birtwistle, he came to prominence with the premiere of his Scenes and Arias at the BBC Proms in 1962. He is famous for his attempts to reconnect with the Romantic tradition and its preoccupation with sweeping melodies, which he believed had been broken by the onset of Modernism. His repertoire includes orchestral, chamber, solo instrumental, choral and operatic works, and our concert on Sunday 30 October includes some of the biggest milestones of his career.

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His sumptuous Violin Concerto, an expansive piece composed in a Brahmsian manner for a typical nineteenth century orchestra, jointly commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Orchestra of St Luke's, New York, will be performed by international violin superstar Tasmin Little.

Sophie's Choice was Maw's final opera, based on William Styron's eponymous novel on the tragic subject of Auschwitz and a mother's choice as to which of her two children to send to the gas chambers. The suite will receive its UK premiere at the concert and was drawn from the opera a year after its world premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2002. The Suite does not follow the sequence of the opera, but includes the sumptuous orchestral writing (one of the most highly praised facets of the opera).

The concert closes with two beautiful choral pieces, featuring the Holst Singers: One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand, based on a poem by Edwin Muir on the subject of mankind's Fall in the Garden of Eden, and Hymnus, Maw's sole work for mixed chorus and orchestra based on two early Christian texts.

Royal Academy of Music students
Holst Singers
Stephen Layton conductor
Christopher Austin conductor*
Tasmin Little violin

Violin Concerto*
Sophie's Choice Suite
One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand
Hymnus

Nicholas Maw: The Master
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank Centre

Sunday 30 October 7.00pm
FREE pre concert activities from 4.00pm