Chichester date for English Chamber Orchestra Ensemble string octet

They will be performing in the Assembly Room in the Council House in North Street on Thursday, March 21, with tickets available from Chichester Festival Theatre.

The ECO is one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras, having performed in more countries than any other orchestra and played with the world’s greatest musicians in its five decades of history. In this concert, its top string players will be led by violinist Ofer Falk. Ofer frequently steps in as leader of the ECO and has been leader of the Schidlof and Allegri Quartets. He will be guiding his musicians through the programme: Bartok Rumanian Folk Dances Sz 68; Mendelssohn Violin concerto in E minor Op 64; and Mendelssohn Octet in E flat Op 20.

“It is not a permanent line-up but it is comprised of people that form the front desk or the principals. It's more or less the same people but it does vary according to availability, and we don't do it that often. It's more of a summer thing to do when there is a lot of chamber music in the summer.

“It is in the nature of the English Chamber Orchestra for some reason that the ECO has so many chamber music players that are playing in quartets or whatever and I think it means that the ethos in the ECO is slightly different. There's a certain level of more soloistic approach, more chamber music approach and slightly less orchestral approach in the orchestra perhaps.”

And that's what this night taps into.

Ofer first played with them a number of years ago: “I was originally brought in when a concert for back then Prince Charles had a couple of the regulars drop out. My wife is the leader and the guy that ran it decided they needed somebody that played very loud and, yeah, well, I can play loud! He wanted someone quite confident! Ever since then I've been coming and going and guesting quite a lot but it's only in the last three months that I have been appointed as a member.”

As for the programme: “The Mendelssohn octet is one of the greatest chamber music pieces and I came across this arrangement for Mendelssohn's violin concerto as an octet and I thought that it would be a very interesting juxtaposition to see how the Mendelssohn works across the two pieces. It's just two pieces that I absolutely love and I thought it was amazing to put them in the concert. We did a project at Trinity Laban just for me with a bunch of students and it worked really well and I proposed it to the ECO and to the chamber series.

“The Bartok is another one of my favourites and I think this is going to be more or less a world premiere. It's an arrangement for violin and piano combined with an arrangement for string orchestra and it has never been done before in this particular way.”