Contakt has been staging concerts and events since 2009. We are now aiming to produce a recording of a live concert of our music performed by a professional string quartet, to further promote the ensemble. We are working with the Ardenti string quartet and Jeff Ardron, sound engineer, in the beautiful setting of St George’s Bloomsbury.
Any donation you can make will enable us to produce our new recording, helping enormously in promoting Contakt and enabling us to organise further events.
The concert will be at 7.30 on the 25th of November, in the unique and historic St George's Bloomsbury, a church designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1730.
Contakt is a group of composers/performers who came together to experiment and perform new work. The current group is seen as a core with a fluid approach to collaboration with other composers, performers and artists in both sound and image. The members have a wide background in music composition, performance and other art forms, and aim to bring these together in concerts and events.
Contakt website: https://contaktensemble.org/
Apart from the occasion of the actual concert, we aim to stream the professionally produced recording to help promote our ensemble.
Each member of Contakt has composed two or three pieces:
Derek Foster: Two Movements / Miniature String Quartet / Spring Statement
Kerry Andrews: Stone / Chamber Music
Deborah Edwards: Parenthesis / Disembodied
Ardenti String Quartet was formed to play live outdoor concerts when musicians were unable to work due to the Covid lockdown and cancellation of almost all concerts. They now play regularly together - outside and inside.
Sophie Langdon, first violin - Sophie is one of Britain's leading violinists. Her career encompasses concerto performances and recordings with many major orchestras - the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Radio Orchestra and others.
Sarah Wormell Evans, second violin - Sarah studied both violin and viola at Trinity College of Music in London where she won several prizes including The John Barbirolli Prize for String Quartet, The Leonard Smith duo prize, The Sophie Langdon Classical Concerto Competition and The Alfred Gibson Memorial Prize.
Mike Briggs, viola - Mike is a member of the BBC Concert Orchestra. He has also played for BBC Philharmonic, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Bath Phil, Oxford Phil, SPM and various West End and touring shows.
Miriam Lowbury, cello - Miriam studied at Bristol University and the Royal College of Music, and finally at the Royal Academy of Music with the Amadeus Quartet on a Leverhulme Scholarship.
Our sound engineer is Jeff Ardron of St Austral Sound. St Austral Sound specialises in location recordings and mastering of contemporary, alternative, indie, and experimental music. Jeff Ardron, the founder and proprietor, brings more than 30 years of experience in audio recording, mixing and mastering. Blending custom modified microphones (from all eras) with state-of the-art portable digital recording equipment, St Austral Sound brings the best of both worlds to wherever the gig may be –a church, a cave, or somewhere in-between. Seeking new experiences and to learn from different perspectives and norms, Jeff Ardron has lived and worked in Canada, the USA, Germany, as well as the UK.
For more information about St George's see: https://www.stgeorgesbloomsbury.org.uk/history.htm