Title: Oboes and Old Bach­e­lors — Brighton Ear­ly Music Fes­ti­val
Loca­tion: Brighton Friends’ Meet­ing House, Ship Street, Brighton BN1 1AF
Link out: Click here
Descrip­tion: 3pm, 6th Novem­ber 2011.
An hour-long con­cert that explores dance and oboes as they jour­ney from the French Court to Restora­tion Lon­don, con­clud­ing with a pre­sen­ta­tion of William Con­greve’s com­e­dy “The Old Bach­e­lor”, com­plete with Pur­cel­l’s orig­i­nal music.

The Oboe Band are joined by Andrew Maud (actor) and Adri­an Bend­ing (per­cus­sion).

Tick­ets £12 (£10 conc.) from www.bremf.org.uk
Start Time: 15.00
Date: 2011-11-06

Have a lis­ten to a re-run of us being played on BBC Radio 3 break­fast; you can have a sneaky lis­ten to the whole of the Fin­ger Sonata by click­ing this link and scrolling to 44:18 . Enjoy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vcqtw/Breakfast_Saturday_Katie_Derham/

One of the nicest aspects of this review­ing lark is watch­ing and, if pos­si­ble, encour­ag­ing young musi­cians as they make their first steps into the com­plex world of pro­fes­sion­al music-mak­ing — and then fol­low­ing them as their careers devel­op. I often first hear them in stu­dent con­certs or dusty base­ments, or in com­pe­ti­tions like the for­mer Ear­ly Music Net­work Inter­na­tion­al Young Artists’ Com­pe­ti­tion (now run by Nation­al Cen­tre for Ear­ly Music in York). So it is always a thrill when I hear of their suc­cess­es or, as in the case of The Oboe Band, they send me their first CD. The Oboe Band (who are exact­ly what they say on the tin) were formed in 2005, were final­ists in the 2007 com­pe­ti­tion, and were Ensem­ble in Res­i­dence at the Roy­al Col­lege of Music from 2006–8. War & Peace is an appro­pri­ate tile for their CD, as the ear­ly his­to­ry of the oboe cov­ered both even­tu­al­i­ties. The attrac­tive­ly pre­sent­ed pro­gramme reflects the his­to­ry of the instru­ment and its music dur­ing the 17th and ear­ly 18th cen­turies. The inevitable tran­scrip­tions work well, par­tic­u­lar­ly the two Pur­cell suites. The play­ing is excel­lent through­out, with some impres­sive use of artic­u­la­tion and dynam­ics in their insight­ful inter­pre­ta­tions. I can assure any read­ers who might think that an entire CD of oboes is the sort of thing designed to annoy the neigh­bours that this is far more like­ly to delight. Andrew Ben­son-Wil­son

Title: The Oboe Band per­form at the Big Dou­ble Reed Day!
Loca­tion: Guild­hall School of Music and Dra­ma, Lon­don
Link out: Click here
Descrip­tion: The Oboe Band are hap­py to be per­form­ing at this year’s Big Dou­ble Reed Day; come along to lis­ten to and meet our play­ers, bring your ques­tions and have the chance to pick up a CD at a dis­count price!
Start Time: 09:30
Date: 2010-10-10

War and Peace was giv­en 4 out of 5 stars by Ear­ly Music Mag­a­zine:

War and Peace is the debut record­ing from The Oboe Band, a quar­tet of ear­ly music spe­cial­ists formed in 2005 “to revive the once huge­ly pop­u­lar ensem­ble of baroque oboes and bas­soon from the time of the Restora­tion”. Con­sist­ing of inti­mate cham­ber music, music for the table, the­atre music and pieces for out­door enter­tain­ment, this CD gives the lis­ten­er a chance to hear exam­ples of reper­toire from the oboe band’s many and var­ied roles, clear­ly demon­strat­ing the many facets of the oboes’ char­ac­ter from the “pure and plan­gent” to the “brave and spright­ly”. MB

The oboe band’s debut cd “War and Peace” is now avail­able from our web shop!