Join our informal Hausmusik events where the audience decide what’s played from a selection of chamber music and the musicians sight-read it together for the first time.

On the road to Denbury just before the Rising Sun Pub. We’re in .a different part of Bremridge from usual. Come from 5pm – bring a picnic and enjoy the gardens. for our second Hausmusik.

What is a Hausmusik?
These are informal events, usually in someone’s home or an interesting place that’s not a typical concert hall. The musicians assemble a collection of works across the whole history of string quartet repertoire from Haydn and Mozart, through Brahms, Dvorak, Debussy to later 20th and 21st century composers. They discuss these with the audience and a consensus emerges about what the audience would like to hear, and the musicians play it together without any rehearsal.

This is the sort of thing that typically happens when musicians get together to prepare a piece for a concert, though not normally with an audience. There might be pauses, where they go back to play a passage again; it might even break down completely if somebody misreads the part, or if one musician plays at a different speed to the others – this is all part of playing something together for the first time.

When musicians are playing something like this, there’s a different feel to it – warts, wrinkles and edges perhaps, where anything can happen, compared with a concert performance where all of these have normally been ironed out during rehearsals. It’s a really enjoyable way to spend an evening, with a drink to keep you refreshed and the conversation flowing among the audience and musicians alike.

Stefan Hersh, violin (USA)
Solenne Padidassi, violin (France)
David Yang, viola (USA)
Noemie Raymond, cello (Canada)

Up front and centre of Ashburton Chamber Music Festival 2026 is Brahms’ passionate Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51. It’s Brahms at his most turbulent, lunging from stormy to tender to angst-ridden, with a finale that drives with a ferocious primal energy. We’ll also have two unaccompanied works by Bach: the ebullient E Major Partita for violin and the popular Suite in C Major for cello.

Seventeenth century composer Heinrich Biber’s soulful Passacaglia will make an appearance alongside Ravel’s enigmatic, jazzy, and oh-so-French Sonata for violin and cello. This year we commissioned poet Alfred Nicol to write six deeply personal sonnets to accompany Hungarian composer György Kurtág’s string quartet Six Moments Musicaux. Tom Vignieri’s Walk with Me for tenor sax and quartet will make its customary appearance, and the summer also features a world
première by esteemed English composer Philip Sawyers.

The Divertimento for saxophone & string quartet employs local folk songs such as “Widecombe Fair” in Sawyers’ distinct English voice. Grounding the entire festival is Haydn’s Quartet in B Minor, Op.33, No. 1 – a rare work in a minor key from the father of the string quartet. We’re also repeating last year’s hugely popular Nachtmusik, performed in the dark without applause.

David Yang, Festival Artistic Director

To see everything that's happening, and more about the music and the musicians go to https://ashburtonchambermusicfestival.org.uk

See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre.