The Berkeley Ensemble is a British chamber music ensemble that explores little-known twentieth- and twenty first-century British chamber music alongside a more established repertoire.
Founded in 2008 by members of Southbank Sinfonia, the ensemble reached the finals of the 2009 Royal Over-Seas League music competition and has since performed regularly in the UK and abroad.[1]
Their recordings and performances are regularly featured in the national press. Their album Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works was selected by BBC Music Magazine as Chamber Choice in 2015,[2] and Lennox Berkeley: Stabat Mater was nominated for a Gramophone Magazine Classical Music Award in 2017.[3]
The ensemble revived the Cobbett Competition for chamber music composition (as The New Cobbett Competition) in 2014, with Sequenza for string quartet by Samuel Lewis as the first winner.[4]
Since 2016 the Berkeley Ensemble has curated the annual Little Venice Music Festival in London.[5] It celebrated its 10th anniversary with a performance at the Purcell Room in September 2018.[6]
The ensemble has released a number of albums, most notably:
Cobbett’s Legacy: The New Cobbett Prize for Chamber Music (2019, Resonus Classics) received a 4-star review in The Guardian[7]
Winter Fragments (2018, Resonus Classics) was praised for the ensemble’s “endlessly responsive playing” by Fiona Maddocks in The Observer[8]
Stabat Mater: Sacred Choral Music by Lennox & Michael Berkeley (2016, Delphian Records) was nominated for a Gramophone Award[3]
Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works (2015, Resonus Classics) received a 5-star review in BBC Music Magazine[9] and positive reviews in the Telegraph[2] and Sunday Times[10]
Clarion Call: Music for Septet and Octet (2014, Resonus Classics) received positive reviews in The Observer,[11]Gramophone Magazine,[12]The Strad,[13] and Classical Ear.[14]
^Pettitt, Hugh Canning, David Cairns, Paul Driver and Stephen. "Classical, May 3". The Sunday Times. ISSN0140-0460. Retrieved 20 September 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)