Fitzwilliam String Quartet and Nancy Cooley (piano)

The happy combination of Lewes pianist Nancy Cooley with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet brings us a programme of entirely English music: from Purcell through to Uckfield-based Julian Boughton. The Fitzwilliams are celebrating their 50th anniversary: in March 1969, four first-year Cambridge undergraduates gave a concert in Churchill College. Alan George was one of those four. Since then the quartet have been tireless promoters of new music (premiering Shostakovich's last quartets) and were also early champions of period instruments. After a long residency at York, they now enjoy one, appropriately, at Fitzwilliam College Cambridge.

Nancy Cooley is well known to Lewes audiences not only for her playing but also as the Artisitic director of the Lewes Festival of Song. After winning the accompanist's prize in the Walther Gruner International Lieder Competition in 1987 she has spcialised in song repertoire and in chamber music.

'The Fitzwilliam in its reincarnated state, with Lucy Russell as leader, captured the soul of the music in their absorption with every gesture and shading.' The Strad 1997