The Magnard Ensemble | Wind Quintet with Piano

Since their foundation in 2012, the Magnard Ensemble have built a reputation for delivering both high-quality concert performances and dynamic educational projects. The Ensemble made its international debut at the Culture & Convention Centre Lucerne, Switzerland in January 2017. During the 2014/2015 season, the quintet simultaneously held a Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music, as well as the inaugural joint fellowship between the RAM Open Academy and Wigmore Hall Learning. The players all follow their own professional performing careers, appearing as soloists, chamber musicians and with orchestras including London Philharmonic Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, Royal Northern Sinfonia, the BBC orchestras, and major UK opera orchestras.

During 2016 their Revolting Rhymes and Marvellous Music project was launched nationwide to celebrate the centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth, in partnership with Paul Patterson, Martin Butler, the City Music Foundation and Music Link International. The Ensemble has delivered concerts and workshops at festivals and venues across the country including Wigmore Hall, the Forge Camden, National Centre for Early Music, Wells Cathedral School, the Hay, Thaxted and Aberystwyth festivals, as well as Repton School, Roald Dahl’s alma mater. The project was featured on BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ programme in September 2016.

Rebecca Kenny | Narrator

Actress. Storyteller. Clown. Rebecca trained at Brighton drama school, The Academy of Creative Training, as well as spending time studying in Paris at Ecole Jacques Lecoq and with Philippe Gaulier. Rebecca is a theatre-maker based in London, producing comedy, cabaret and physical theatre performances. She is also the singer for London-based ukulele band Watch Out For The Bear.

Paul Patterson | Composer

Paul Patterson is one of the most versatile, successful and internationally respected British composers of his generation. His works have been performed by all of the major UK orchestras, many orchestras abroad, eminent ensembles and international soloists, through whom he has also built up a substantial discography. He has been the featured composer at many festivals both in the UK and abroad, and has also been a BBC Composer of the Week. His writing is often challenging but also idiomatic and consequently many of his solo works have been chosen as set pieces for international competitions throughout Europe.

His substantial oeuvre is stylistically varied; he is known for his sympathetic and often humorous writing for instruments, making a popular and successful name for himself in choral, brass, organ, orchestral, concerti and children’s music. Music lovers worldwide enjoy his music as it never alienates, but creates an enriching experience that draws in both audiences and performers.

Martin Butler | Composer

Martin Butler was born in 1960 and studied at the University of Manchester, the Royal Northern College of Music, and Princeton University, USA. From September 1998 to July 1999 Butler was Composer-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in the United States. He is currently Professor of Music at the University of Sussex.

Butler’s works are widely performed and broadcast both in the UK and abroad. He has received commissions from, amongst others, the BBC, the London Sinfonietta, the Schubert Ensemble and the Brighton, Cheltenham, Canterbury, Norfolk & Norwich, and Presteigne festivals.