A SPECIAL concert to remember the two World Wars will be performed at 8pm at Artrix next Friday (January 23).
The event, featuring the Fitzwilliam Quartet, will feature music written during the First and Second World War.
The group is renowned worldwide and is one of the longest established quartets around.
The current line-up includes founding member and violist Alan George, along with violinists Lucy Russell and Marcus Barcham-Stevens and cellist Heather Tuach.
Among the pieces being played will be the third quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich who the group has a unique link with. He travelled to York from the Soviet Union to hear the quartet give the British première of his 13th quartet. The Fitzwilliams went on to be the first group to record and perform all 15 of Shostakovich’s string quartets, drawing on their musical friendship with the composer.
Other works being performed include Delius’s nostalgic reverie from the First World War and then Vaughan Williams’ quartet written during the Second World War.
The Meditation on the St Wenceslas Chorale by Joseph Suk will bring down the curtain on the evening. The piece is a plea for peace by the Czech people at the end of the First World War which almost became their country’s national anthem.
Tickets, at £17 for single tickets (£3 concessions – registered disabled, unemployed or full-time students over 25), are available by visiting www.artrix.co.uk or by calling 01527 577330.
Subscription and Rover tickets are also available and young people under 25 are admitted free to all concerts thanks to the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust.
Katie Cross with teacher Sam Stacy and the memorabilia from George Ezra. s
