Performer Name: Bute Wind Quintet

Show Name: British Celebration

Show Description

A Celebration of Great British music for Wind Quintet Programme: Sullivan Iolanthe Oveture (8) Burtch Divertimento (8) Jacob Wind Quintet (18) MacMillan Untold (7) McDowell Subject to the Weather (5) Arnold Three Sea Shanties (8) Bridge Six Miniature Pastorals (11) Vaughan Williams Folk Song Suite (11) This programme includes some of Britains most loved composers. From Sullivan’s Overture to the comic opera Iolanthe (1882) to Vaughan Williams’ rambunctious and touching English Folk Song Suite (1923). The programme traces a lineage of composers also, as Malcolm Arnold was taught by Gordon Jacob who was of course taught by Vaughan Williams, and who even arranged the orchestral setting of his English Folk Song Suite. Vaughan Williams was also a contemporary of one of Britain’s unsung musical innovators – Frank Bridge, who went on to teach the inimitable Benjamin Britten. The programme also highlights living composers with the Scottish James MacMillan’s beautiful work Untold (1987/91) inspired by Irish folk song For Ireland I’d not tell her Name. McDowall brings the Welsh folk song The Blackbird to the fore with her work Subject to the Weather (2010) written for the leading British Wind Quintet the Galliard Ensemble. Finally with our Quintet’s strong connection to Wales it would be remiss to ignore the light and refreshing – yet still starkly contrasting work of Welsh composer Mervyn Burtch.

The Bute Wind Quintet are two time winners of the June Emerson Wind Music Launchpad Prize, championing the diversity of the wind quintet genre. The group have had a busy 2024, performing as Young Ensemble Artists for the Beaumaris Festival, Cowbridge Music Festival, and the Fishguard Festival of Music. The group have notably performed for the Royal Society of Musicians, the University of South Wales Graduation Ceremonies and the International Malcolm Arnold Festival. Their 2025 performance highlight was their London debut at Conway Hall. They have just completed a two year Artists Residency at the Norwegian Church Arts Centre. The group have given recitals for the Cwmdu Music Concert Series and Concerts at the Crossroads Recital Series, and were asked to record The Night Before Christmas by Oliver Tarney for Convivium Records, which will be released in 2025. Individually, Gabriella Alberti (flute), Sam Willsmore (oboe), Hannah Harding (bassoon), Nathan Barker (French horn) and Meg Davies (clarinet) have all freelanced with professional orchestras such as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Welsh National Opera and recently, bassoonist Hannah Harding has joined Sinfonia Smith Square (formerly Southbank Sinfonia) for their 2024/2025 season. The Quintet have a busy 2025 booked, with recitals at Knighton Music Society, St Georges Bristol, Wellhayes Music Society, Lichfield Festival and at Wye Valley’s Coleford Summer Band Stand.