Berkeley_Ensemble
Berkeley Ensemble
British chamber music ensemble
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 is named after the British composers Lennox Berkeley and Michael Berkeley.[1] Its patrons are Michael Berkeley and Petroc Trelawny.