Manor House Music String Quartet Weblog

Wedding at Notley Tythe Barn

On Friday, we returned once again to a local venue outside of Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire - Notley Tythe Barn. The barn is an atmospheric rural venue with wonderful exposed beams and over 300 years of history. The owner, Nick was on hand to help co-ordinate proceedings including giving the signal for us to start [...]

When the music suddenly stops….

As a professional string quartet with many years of training, one of the things we  particularly pride ourselves on are our ‘ensemble skills’. This is having an awareness of what each of us is playing and responding immediately to that. It’s also having an idea of the external goings on whilst concentrating fully on the [...]

Classical music NOT to choose for a wedding….

A string quartet will usually provide music for all sorts of functions, such as corporate events, product launches, birthday parties, military dinners and of course weddings - and the most established, professional groups will always have a large repertoire of music, so that there is something to suit virtually any occasion.
Of course, when it comes [...]

Wedding at Waddesdon Manor

Last week we had another Friday wedding at a very local venue to us - Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire.  At Waddesdon the weddings take place at ‘the Old Dairy’ which is a separate building to the Manor House itself. It cleverly utilises two buildings with a conservatory type area between the two which overlooks a lake [...]

Wedding at Barrington Hall in Cambridgeshire

Last week we provided a string quartet for an outdoor wedding in the picturesque village of Barrington in Cambridgeshire. The ceremony was also outside with the bride arriving in a horse drawn carriage which was very impressive indeed! (and apparently a complete surprise for everyone including the bridal party).
Fortunately the weather remained idyllic, so we [...]

Wedding at Quendon Hall

With September proving to be almost as popular a month to get married as August, we’ve still got a full diary every weekend, with Friday’s and Sunday’s being in high demand as well as Saturdays. This weekend, we played for weddings as far afield as in Evesham (Worcestershire) and returned once more to Parklands Quendon [...]

The summer wedding season….

This time of year is as usual, particularly hectic, with bookings on 7 days out of 10. Over the weekend, we provided music for four weddings in places as far afield as Le Talbooth near Colchester, Northampton, Rhinefield House  in the New Forest down in Hampshire and a little bit closer to home at the Manor of Groves Hotel in Hertfordshire.
With [...]

The cost of being the best string quartet? £295 + VAT

Today we received a gushing telephone call from a wedding magazine informing us that they were running a special feature about the ‘top twelve’ suppliers of classical music for weddings in the UK. After “careful consideration”, they wanted to recommend the Manor House String Quartet (yes us!) to represent the South East of England – [...]

Cost of a String Quartet - what it costs us

  A quick half hour spent on the internet will turn up hundreds of different wedding string quartets, all charging a wide variety of prices - from just a few hundred pounds to over a thousand, superficially it appears for providing the same service. In the same way, calling around wedding venues will also reveal big differences [...]

Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits (arr. for String Quartet by Vaughan Jones)

Filmed in St Giles Church, Cheddington, Buckinghamshire.