Maestro is a new initiative bringing some of the world’s most famous musicians to perform and teach in Somerset each year. It will offer music-lovers across the South West a unique chance to hear remarkable performances up close in the award-winning, intimate surroundings of Cedars Hall in Wells.
World-class artists know from their own training that direct contact with the great performers is paramount for exceptional young musicians. These are crucial visits therefore. But despite huge generosity on fees and teaching from the artists themselves, they are also expensive. Ticket sales alone will never cover the costs in full, and Cedars Hall needs your support in bridging this gap by joining our Maestro Membership scheme.
Priority booking for Members and Sponsors only; general booking opens on 11th November 2024
Membership allows you to buy a transferable, discounted season ticket to all 11 concerts. If you find that you can’t attend a concert, you can give your ticket to someone else to use. The Maestro Season ticket costs £250 and represents a saving of over 25% on full ticket prices for the season’s programme. This offer, exclusive to Members and Sponsors, will be available until the first concert on 9th January 2025, or earlier if we already have a sell-out during the season. Please act quickly if you would like one.
Acclaimed worldwide for his profound musicianship and technical mastery, British cellist Steven Isserlis enjoys a unique and distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, author, broadcaster and “general enthusiast”. The perfect musician, then, to kick off Cedars Hall’s unique new Maestro Series of exceptional performing and teaching residencies.
In a remarkable coup for Cedars Hall, the legendary pianist returns to Wells to play Beethoven’s E minor piano sonata Op 90, and Schubert’s final piano masterpiece, the Sonata in B flat D960. This is an extraordinary opportunity to hear one of the world’s greatest musicians up close in the UK’s loveliest and most intimate concert hall. Tickets limited to 4 per booking.
Two Maestri for the price of one: the award-winning vocalist and broadcaster joins Sting’s regular pianist for a classy, swinging evening of jazz standards. Expect a sequence of great songs served with a dose of Clare’s unique jazz cabaret style – self-deprecating wit and irresistible charisma. Jason Rebello, winner of the British Jazz Awards Best Pianist, brings sheer class to everything he plays.
Mike Dawes is probably the world’s finest fingerstyle guitarist: composing, arranging and performing multiple parts simultaneously on a single guitar. A creative powerhouse on YouTube and creator of unique live arrangements, he’s also had mainstream chart success and regularly performs with Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues. He featured in the very first series of concerts at Cedars Hall. A video from that performance has now had over 13 million hits.
If you ever wondered what breathtaking virtuosity looks like in the pop world, don’t miss this.
A special 30th birthday celebration for an ensemble which the BBC hails a “wonderful, virtuosic brass quintet” who have redefined for our generation what the brass ensemble can do. “Their virtuosity is absolutely staggering…they are brilliant” – Sarah Walker BBC Radio 3. The highlight of a short teaching residency for exceptional young brass players from Wells and beyond, their Maestro concert will feature peerless playing, musical generosity and doubtless some surprises.
A gala concert by one of the greatest British string quartets celebrating its 6th decade with works by Beethoven and Shostakovich. Since its formation in 1972, the group has performed over 3,500 concerts and released more than 70 recordings. Natural curiosity, discipline and an insatiable desire to explore have ensured the Brodsky’s pre-eminence as international chamber musicians of the highest quality.
The programme includes Shostakovich’s celebrated 5th quartet and Beethoven’s epic Op 130 with its towering Grosse Fuge finale.
A Cedars Hall favourite, the multi-award-winning pianist Steven Osborne is renowned for his thrilling musicality and creative programming, He’s as comfortable performing classical masters as he is playing Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans. In this special recital we hear the vast breadth of his talents with a programme of miniatures by Schumann and Debussy combined with mouthwatering American music, his own improvisations and the works of jazz piano masters, including Oscar Peterson.
Painter, author, pianist, composer, and hat connoisseur, Sir Stephen Hough is the ultimate polymath whose insatiable curiosity and joie de vivre inform everything he does. Stephen is in huge demand across the world, widely regarded as one of the most important and distinctive pianists of his generation. We are very fortunate to have him return to Cedars Hall where his full programme will be announced nearer the time. It will, however, include Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata and his own Mary Poppins Suite, a movement of which he played in the 2024 Last Night of the Proms.
The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective describe themselves as a “flexible ensemble of wonderful, joyful, kind, passionate musicians who can’t wait to share chamber music with you”. What they modestly don’t say is that Kaleidoscope is a sparky, shape-shifting line-up of some of the most starry young musicians in the country. You will be amazed how brilliant they are….
Their programme will be announced nearer the time.
Talent runs in families, and music history is full of dynasties – the Mozarts, Strausses and Bachs for example. But not even the von Trapp Family Singers can compete with the Bevan family from Croscombe who have sung en masse in Somerset and beyond since the 1970s. The internationally acclaimed lyric soprano Sophie Bevan is one of eight musical children in the current generation which also includes opera stars Mary and Ben. It must be something in the water. For this homecoming recital she is joined by Seb Wybrew in a programme of favourite Schubert and Wolff songs plus doubtless some additional treats.
Staggeringly precocious as a young violinist, Chloë Hanslip made her Proms debut at fourteen and played her first US concerto date a year later. She featured, aged 10, in a BBC documentary Can You Make A Genius? and played a private recital for the late Duke of Edinburgh. Now in her thirties, she’s a mature and remarkable artist whose partnership with Danny Driver is one of the joys of the chamber music world. They play works by Bach and Franck – the full programme will be announced nearer the time.