Manor House Music String Quartet Weblog

Concert at Totternhoe Church, Bedfordshire

Last night was the first of our Winter concert series, this time in the lovely village Church of St Giles of Provence in Totternhoe. The Church Warden had booked us for this event after attending one of our concerts in Eaton Bray Church back in the autumn and we were delighted to be asked to perform [...]

Christmas Concert in Haddenham Church

On Friday the 17th December, we performed a second concert in St. Mary’s church, Haddenham (just outside Aylesbury on the Buckinghamshire/Oxfordshire border). It was a chilly evening which made travelling difficult as the roads were icy and several inches of snow lay on the ground - this is just one of the problems inherent in [...]

Away in a Manger

This carol seems to have stemmed from the 400th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth. As a possible piece of publicity, some claimed that Martin Luther himself had written ‘Away in a Manger’ as a lullaby for his own children but it seems that the carol dates from around 1883. Away in a Manger has had [...]

A Night at the Movies….

On Friday, we gave our much anticipated concert at St Giles Church, Cheddington - entitled ‘A Night At The Movies’ featuring popular classics featured in films. As usual, we spent the whole day rehearsing hard, with two hours of music to perfect for the evening. The rest of the group arrived around 11am and we [...]

Concert at St Pancras Church, 30th July

Today we had the pleasure of performing at the stunning church of St Pancras on the Euston Road in London. The church has a weekly series of lunchtime recitals with a regular audience and we were particularly pleased to see at least 50 people in the church.
Having performed two duos by Mozart and Rolla on Tuesday [...]

Concert at St Michael at the North Gate - 20th July 09.

On Monday we returned to the church of St Michael at the North Gate in Oxford to give a lunchtime recital as part of their ‘Music on Mondays’ concert series.
The concerts are an opportunity for ensembles and musicians to perform works of their own choice, so we chose to give the first airing to the [...]

Borodin - Nocturne from String Quartet no. 2 in D

Performed at the Church of St Michael at the North Gate, Cornmarket, Oxford - Lunchtime, 20th July 2009

Classical Concert at the Swiss Gardens

Last night we were very privileged to return to give another open air concert in the Swiss Gardens in Bedfordshire. Although we play for quite a few weddings in the Swiss Gardens, we particularly look forward to giving these evening recitals as the audiences are always really lovely and it’s wonderful to be playing in such beautiful [...]

Concert at St Giles Church, 15th May 2009

Despite forecasts of rain, the weather was absolutely beautiful on the Friday evening of our village church concert and brought the audience out en masse. I think that it’s not a bad way to end the working week - coming along to a country church and enjoying a glass of wine whilst hearing some classical music.
Everyone [...]

Concert at St Giles Church - Preparation!

Although the quartet are very accustomed to travelling long distances to play, this week, it’s particularly nice to be playing a concert about a five minute walk from my house. We’re going to be performing a concert tomorrow evening in St Giles Church in our home village of Cheddington - and have been working hard [...]