Berkeley Ensemble

The Berkeley Ensemble is a British chamber music ensemble that explores little-known twentieth- and twenty first-century British chamber music alongside a more established repertoire.

Berkeley Ensemble
Origin	UK
Genres	Chamber music ensemble
Years active	2008 (2008) – present
Website	www.berkeleyensemble.co.uk

Founded in 2008 by members of Southbank Sinfonia, the ensemble reached the finals of the 2009 Royal Over-Seas League music competition and has since performed regularly in the UK and abroad.^[1]

Their recordings and performances are regularly featured in the national press. Their album Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works was selected by BBC Music Magazine as Chamber Choice in 2015,^[2] and Lennox Berkeley: Stabat Mater was nominated for a Gramophone Magazine Classical Music Award in 2017.^[3]

The ensemble revived the Cobbett Competition for chamber music composition (as The New Cobbett Competition) in 2014, with Sequenza for string quartet by Samuel Lewis as the first winner.^[4]

Since 2016 the Berkeley Ensemble has curated the annual Little Venice Music Festival in London.^[5] It celebrated its 10th anniversary with a performance at the Purcell Room in September 2018.^[6]

The ensemble is named after the British composers Lennox Berkeley and Michael Berkeley.^[1] Its patrons are Michael Berkeley and Petroc Trelawny.

Albums

The ensemble has released a number of albums, most notably:

• Cobbett’s Legacy: The New Cobbett Prize for Chamber Music (2019, Resonus Classics) received a 4-star review in The Guardian^[7]
• Winter Fragments (2018, Resonus Classics) was praised for the ensemble’s “endlessly responsive playing” by Fiona Maddocks in The Observer^[8]
• Stabat Mater: Sacred Choral Music by Lennox & Michael Berkeley (2016, Delphian Records) was nominated for a Gramophone Award^[3]
• Lennox Berkeley: Chamber Works (2015, Resonus Classics) received a 5-star review in BBC Music Magazine^[9] and positive reviews in the Telegraph^[2] and Sunday Times^[10]
• Clarion Call: Music for Septet and Octet (2014, Resonus Classics) received positive reviews in The Observer,^[11] Gramophone Magazine,^[12] The Strad,^[13] and Classical Ear.^[14]