Romsey Chamber Music Festival

A warm welcome to Romsey Chamber Music Festival 2025 - Coda! This year we explore music born from the brink of life’s end - compositions created amidst war, loss, and personal turmoil. Music has incredible power to bring solace, offer hope, and convey the resilience of the human spirit, I can't wait to explore some of these profoundly beautiful works with you.

 

Highlights of this year's festival include Brahms C minor Piano Quartet, Strauss Four Last Songs, Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time and Crumb Black Angels. In a truly extraordinary feat, violinist Luke Hsu will perform the complete Paganini 24 Caprices in our festival home, the United Reformed Church - not to be missed! We also will visit Sherfield English for the first time, where festival artists will perform Schubert's epic Death and the Maiden. The Goethe String Quartet continue their exploration of late Beethoven String Quartets, this time with Op. 132 and we welcome Junyan Chen, fresh from her Leeds Piano Competition Silver Medal to perform Liszt B minor Piano Sonata. Our commitment to new music includes a world premiere of a co-commission with Presteigne Festival from Romsey-born Martin Butler, as well as works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Edmund Finnis, Olli Mustonen and Thomas Adès. RCMF 2025 will open in Romsey Abbey with a rare performance of Gavin Bryars Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, a rare chance to hear this immensely moving work. Our family concert is back on Saturday 7th June, once again curated by Lydia Hillerudh, this relaxed concert will include story-telling and music for everyone on a pay-as-you-can basis. 

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Some of you will notice that we have a brand new ticketing box office this year, I hope it is easier to navigate than our previous one!

 

I am as always so thrilled to bring internationally celebrated musicians from across Europe to my home town of Romsey, I look forward to welcoming you to the seventh edition of the Romsey Chamber Music Festival!

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Laura Rickard - Artistic Director