Chichester Chamber Concerts return this autumn

Chichester Chamber Concerts have announced a full programme for this autumn and winter, with tickets on sale from Chichester Festival Theatre.
Barbican QuartetBarbican Quartet
Barbican Quartet

Concerts will be in at the Assembly Room, Chichester, with the 17th season running from October 2021 to March 2022.

Coming up are: Thursday, October 7, Barbican Quartet; Thursday, November 4; Northern Chords Ensemble; Thursday, December 2, Le Consort; Thursday, January 27, Van Baerle Trio; Thursday, February 24, Chiaroscuro Quartet; and Thursday, March 10, Matthew Hunt clarinet, Alec Frank Gemmill horn, Chiaroscuro Quartet and Friends.

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Series chairman Anna Hill is hoping the run the series as normal, at full capacity. Whether she and the team will be asking people to wear face masks is a decision they will take nearer the time.

“We are really hoping that things will be back to normal,” Anna said.

“The theatre is selling tickets, but we have to be aware that we have to be flexible and that if something crops up then we will have to react.

“We just have to be ready for anything really. But we do feel quite pleased that we have survived this year and that we did manage to put on concerts and we are especially pleased that we were accepted by the Festival of Chichester for our concerts this year. It was definitely an advantage for us to be part of the Festival of Chichester. I do think people might have come to our concerts at the Festival who might not have discovered us otherwise.

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“We managed to put on three concerts in the autumn and then we discovered live stream so two of them were livestreamed. And then there was lockdown but we managed to offer concerts in June and July, so it was not too bad all things considered. We usually have six concerts in a season, so really that was pretty good. I had to make some changes because some of the artists that we had booked were coming from other countries and so couldn’t come, but I did manage to replace them with artists who were in the UK.”

The upshot is that Chichester Chamber Concerts have shown considerable resilience in adversity: “After 14 years you could say we are well established now! But certainly we are looking to put on concerts at the Festival of Chichester again next year.”

As for the autumn: “I book about two years ahead so I was booking these artists before the pandemic which sounds crazy now, but fortunately the first two groups in October and November are UK based, and then we have a baroque group called Le Consort who are based in Paris so we will be crossing our fingers for that one, and then in January we have a Dutch group so again we will be hoping for the best, but then for the concerts after that the performers are UK based.

Musicians have all had a hard time of it, and they are all saying just how much they have missed performing to a live audience very much, but now they are getting engagements again and they have all told me how grateful they are to be presenting with us. Music is so important in our lives, but for them music isn’t just their lives: it is also their livelihoods. But places like the Wigmore Hall have done wonders with livestreaming concerts.”

Tickets for six concerts £84; four concerts £58; single concert £18.

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