MAGNARD ENSEMBLE

Three amazing pieces. On the brink of a national tour. In April 2016, Trinity United Reformed Church, Wimbledon is the venue. We have the exceptional producer Andrew Keener at the helm and Oscar Torres engineering. We’re about to make our debut CD, ‘Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music’! I was quite nervous about the whole process - I’d never been recorded in such an exposed ensemble, making something that felt so much like it belonged to us. It was amazing to be in the hand

Hi there!! It's now EXACTLY a week until the 29th September, 'Maggerz Day', when we release our Roald-Dahl themed debut disc 'Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music' on Orchid Classics!!!!! Everyone at Magnard Towers is SUPER excited and can't wait for you all to hear it. To countdown to the Big Day we thought it might be fun for every member of Team Pig to write a blog post discussing a different aspect of the project, from highlights of our ongoing tour to anecdotes and behi

Mana here! TWO big pieces of news this month. Number one, our fabulous flautist, Suzie got married! Congratulations Mr and Mrs Clements!! She was a beautiful bride and although I vowed not to cry, my tear duct had a different idea as soon as I saw Suzie at the bottom of the church aisle… News number two, OUR CD IS FINALLY READY. We can hardly believe it ourselves. It’s been such a long and windy road (with lots of learning curves) but thanks to everyone who supported us over

Brace yourselves, piglets. The Magnards are coming. Nothing can stop them. World Domination is at hand. ... Fresh from seeing the wonderful Theater Gnaffel and the Cambridge Philharmonic perform their interpretations of 'The Three Little Pigs and 'Little Red Riding Hood' with full orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, I spent my journey home thinking about what I should write for this week's blog, where we are as a group and what we have coming up on the horizon. On the face

In case you missed it last week check out our live video recording of Paul Patterson's 'Three Little Pigs' here! We are so excited to perform this around the UK throughout this year as part of our Revolting Rhymes Our collaboration with Kenny and Suling has been brilliant in so many ways! It has been so fun to able to explore the repertoire written for this combination but also we are always learning lots from them both! From Suling and her experience accompanying many differ

Hello all! Another Sunday means another blog from the Maggerz team! People often ask us where we got our name, the 'Magnard Ensemble' from, so I thought the blog would be the perfect opportunity to enlighten you all! To do this we have to cast back to 2012 and to our student days at the Royal Academy of Music. Whilst there, we originally formed a piano quintet - piano plus flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon (can you believe we originally didn't have a Jon!) and really the only ma

Hello again! Thank you for visiting our blog. This week we had not one but two Cavatina Chamber Music Trust concerts, AND the second was at none other than Wigmore Hall itself! I think it's fair to say we've had a jolly good week - proof provided in the form of a photograph below. We love performing for Cavatina, as it gives us the opportunity to introduce music to more young people, and to see the fascination and joy in their faces is absolutely priceless. We always make sur

Hello everyone! Another new blogger this week! I’m Cat, the bassoonist of Magnard Ensemble - new to blogging and also the newest member of Magnard. Just a very quick bit about me! I’ve been playing the bassoon ever since I perfectly matched it in height - please see the attached photo of a grinning loony, in a spectacular outfit pushing the boundaries of fashion… This photo may be a gratuitous public embarrassment of myself, but I think it also demonstrates how exciting music

Hello world! I'm Mana, the oboist of the Magnard Ensemble. This is my first blog post ever, which is very exciting/daunting. What would people like to read about on a Sunday afternoon, I wonder? Probably not anything that I can provide! First, what have we been up to this week - on Wednesday we've had our first rehearsal of 2016, which we're pleased to say was very productive! We've got a lot to get through in the next couple of months - a quintet concert in the Swiss Connec

As the members of the Magnard Ensemble recover from our respective Christmases, we are beginning to look forward to the year ahead and all the exciting projects we have on the horizon. First among them is our Roald Dahl Centenary Project, Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music. The promotional materials are being assembled, the engagement list is being drawn up and we have our recording planned for April. The press and PR campaign will be gathering steam from February, and we