Katherine Howard is delighted to announce the launch of a concert series by the Turner Ensemble, brainchild of a group of distinguished principal players from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as well as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Philharmonia Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

The Turner Ensemble’s launch concert on 17 January 2010 also marks the beginning of its five-concert residency for the London Chamber Music Society at the King’s Place. Designed by celebrated architects Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones, Kings Place features the first modern, purpose built concert hall in London, and uniquely houses classical music and the fine arts together in a specialist, state-of-the-art environment. Located next to King’s Cross, the building’s two music halls are situated below street level to create a contemporary environment completely free of intrusive background noise.

The Ensemble chose the name of the artist JMW Turner for his universal lyricism of colour, light and space, and for the inspirational way in which his work is rooted simultaneously in the past and the present.  Future plans include the commissioning of a trilogy of compositions inspired by Turner’s paintings. The first composer to be commissioned is one of the most outstanding composers of his generation, Peter Fribbins. Fribbins studied with Hans Werner Henze and staged his collaborative opera ‘Anna Bella’ when still only 20. He is especially known for his chamber music with commissions across Europe and is also artistic director of the London Chamber Music Society Concerts at Kings Place, London.

The strength of the Turner Ensemble is in the flexibility and adventurousness of its programming. Its debut recital combines two exquisite harp-based pieces (Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro and Debussy’s Danses sacrée et profane) with Fauré’s C minor Piano Quartet and Janáček’s Concertino for piano, strings and wind. Later concerts in this trailblazing series will include masterpieces by Rihm, Brahms, Schoenberg, Schumann and Beethoven.