Nottingham Chamber Music Festival 2025. Various venues in Nottingham, 10 – 13 July 2025, 5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

Photo Credit: Carmen Flores.

Nottingham Chamber Music Festival 2025.  Various venues in Nottingham, 10 – 13 July 2025,

5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

“A Festival that proves that small is often beautiful.”

Music doesn’t have to be on a grand scale to be thrilling, moving or life-enhancing.  In music, as in life, small can be beautiful.  And the classical world’s name for its small-scale wonders is ‘chamber music’, written for performance in rooms rather than big concert halls – but no less powerful for that. 

The Nottingham Chamber Music Festival is now an established feature on the city’s musical landscape.  Its aim is not only to celebrate the vast wealth of pieces written for smaller spaces but also aims to reach deep within Nottingham’s creative community.  Festival Director Carmen Flores seeks every year to find new approaches, new venues, new artists, new audiences in her quest to demonstrate that chamber music is for everyone.  If the term has ever suggested something thick with dust in a far corner of the cultural museum, then this Festival blows all that dust away and lets you see what lies gleaming underneath.

St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market may seem an unlikely venue for chamber music. Surely its soaring vaults wouldn’t deal kindly with the subtle sounds and gestures associated with this sort of micro-music?  In fact, quite the opposite is true; all you need is a little imagination when it comes to layout.  And hey presto, an event such as the Villiers Quartet concert on Friday evening became a revelation.  They not only sat in the middle of the nave facing the south doors, with the audience sitting in close semi-circles around them – but they were also raised up, allowing everyone to have the best-possible view.  This makes a huge difference, especially when it comes to involving listeners in the creative process.

They started with one of Haydn’s greatest quartets, Op. 76, No. 5, a piece that is unconventional, unpredictable and has a wonderful slow movement.  It starts unusually with a theme and variations and immediately in this Villiers performance you knew you were experiencing music in three dimensions and in Technicolor.  The opening theme actually smiled.  Of course, it helped that the players were smiling too.  But the way the music was phrased, the elegance with which it entered the space, the way it charmed with its shy hesitations: all these factors added to the sense of joy which the music communicates. 

After the 18th century Haydn came the 21st century Vivian Fung, a composer who epitomises cultural diversity.  She’s a Canadian living in the USA whose music is deeply rooted in non-Western musical traditions, particularly Chinese and Indonesian folk music.  Her String Quartet No 1 is extraordinary when experienced live, especially its pizzicato third movement, in which not only are the strings plucked throughout but where all sorts of other unexpected things happen too, such as fingers tapping and knuckles rapping the instruments. 

The Schubert ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet, which finished the concert is a piece which was born during the darkest days of the young composer’s life.  It moves from turbulent darkness to the sort of dazzling brightness which reminds us of the sun emerging from behind the most ominous clouds.  Not only did the Villiers Quartet make their performance a poignant testament to Schubert’s ability to transform personal anguish into art, but they managed to demonstrate how chamber music is one of the most potent forms of communication there is.  The way they passed musical ideas from one instrument to another and from the four of them to the audience was a revelation.

Communication was also key in the African Pianism event at St Peter’s on Saturday morning.  It’s not every day that you have a chance to hear a recital showcasing African classical and traditional music in Nottingham.  Pianist Rebeca Omordia with Moussa Dembele (resplendent in black, white, gold, star-decorated robes) played music spanning multiple cultures and regions.  From Christian Onyeji’s Ufie Igbo Dance (rooted in Nigerian Igbo traditions) to Akin Euba’s Yoruba Songs Without Words, the concert highlighted both the diversity and interconnectedness of African musical heritage.  Florence Price, the most celebrated of African-American women composers, was also represented by her Fantasie Nègre, a moving amalgam of Lisztian virtuosity with spirituals sung on the plantations by enslaved people.  Rebeca Omordia’s playing didn’t just show a dazzling technique but proved that this is music which flows in her veins.  You really can’t get more authentic playing of this repertoire.  And the authenticity was increased further when Moussa Dembele joined her on the kora (the African harp) and playing percussion in a selection of Fred Onovwerosuoke’s Studies in African Rhythm.  Rarely (if ever) can St Peter’s have experienced anything like it and the audience clearly loved the way the music and its presentation opened ears and eyes.

Shortly afterwards and back at St Mary’s there was the Festival’s Family Concert, entitled ‘Leap Year’ and presented by three members of Sinfonia Viva - Sophie Rosa (violin), Matthew Dunn (clarinet) and Gareth Humphreys (bassoon) – together with MishMash productions.  At first it was all rather intriguing (not to say bewildering) as the children and their parents entered the church.  The musicians were dressed in Christmas hats and were asking everyone to request their favourite Yuletide tunes.  Once the show got underway, however, all was explained: the theme was ‘a year in music’, starting with Christmas and New Year and taking in Maypoles, summer beaches, Halloween and Bonfire Night on the way.  It was all great fun, involved some ingenious use of props, sets and costumes (plus a bit of slapstick) and clearly delighted all who attended.  It kept in mind the idea that if you like the musicians, then you’ll almost certainly like what they play.  And you couldn’t help liking the three Sinfonia Viva players for whom virtuoso performance was only one of many talents.

On Saturday evening in St Mary’s the NCMF 2025 Festival Artists presented another programme of close-up music, introducing the audience to two rarities: a Duo for Two Violas by Giovanni Viotto (Carmen Flores and Adam Römer making the sound match the sparkle in their eyes) and the second Piano Trio by Louise Farrenc, a 19th century French composer whose music had been long-forgotten before its recent rediscovery.  This Trio suited the NCMF approach perfectly as each of its three movements reflects the composer’s concern for civilised dialogue shared equally among the piano, violin and cello.  Its mixture of virtuosity, Classical clarity and Romantic urgency makes it a piece which deserves to be much better known.  Perhaps this NCMF will help kickstart a trend.

The NCMF Soloists ended their programme with Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet, a cornerstone of chamber music, much loved for its good tunes and inventive variations.  Unusually, one of the five instruments is a double bass, not only adding rich, resonant sounds but also giving the audience the chance to watch the instrument being played at close quarters.  Schubert’s youthful exuberance, flowing melodies, playful rhythms combined with playing of freshness, energy and enthusiasm made for a winning combination.

Two of the Festival’s biggest surprises came on Sunday, its last day.  Eleanor Turner (harp) and Mendi Singh (tabla) together make up Tāla Tarang, which may seem an unlikely combination…until you hear them play.  The programme note says that they weave ‘strands of traditional, contemporary and classical music into a tapestry that celebrates their connection and virtuosity.’  And this is exactly what they do, their musicality thrilling their Contemporary Gallery audiences who heard them perform Spanish flamenco, Hungarian folk music, Ravel’s Bolero, J.S. Bach, film music…and just about everything else. 

The other surprise was the Park Tunnel concert, the Festival’s final event and given by a string quartet from the Le Page Ensemble.  The wide variety of music played (Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Bach, Shostakovich, Philip Glass and much more besides) was matched by the quality of the playing (versatile, nuanced, warmly expressive).  What was so surprising was the sound quality of the Tunnel itself – which would have put many purpose-built concert halls to shame.  You’d need to fill it (as on Sunday) with helpfully absorbent bodies, but the result was a revelation: a bit like (but better than) listening through expensive headphones.

And there was even more this year:  the Le Page Trio’s exhilarating evening of Eastern European folk music (and the classical composers it has inspired) at Delilah Fine Foods as well as a community ‘Schubert Play Along’ session.  Eight events altogether, spanning a huge range and involving many musicians and organisers.  At the helm throughout was Festival Director Carmen Flores, without whose energy and vision none of this would have been possible.  The only predictions I shall make about next year’s Festival is that it is bound to be equally stimulating…and just as surprising.

Nottingham Chamber Music Festival

Villiers Quartet

Festival Soloists

Le Page Trio and Ensemble

Sinfonia Viva

Tāla Tarang

Rebeca Omordia and Moussa Dembele