noisenights + Her Ensemble + Hyde Park Book Club
noisenights is the first crowdfunding initiative that has been designed specifically for classical music with the stated aim of taking world-leading musicians to a series of independent venues.
Her Ensemble is the UK’s first women and non-binary string orchestra and has been described as “a free-form group which seeks to address the gender gap and gender stereotypes in the music industry”.
And Hyde Park Book Club is an independent live music and arts space, café, bar, and bookshop that lies at the heart of Leeds’ creative arts scene.
Put these three elements together on nights like this and it all makes for a winning formula.
Hyde Park Book Club is one of 22 grassroots venues in the UK and Europe making their noisenight debut in 2024. This former petrol station located 1.5 miles north west of Leeds city centre comprises two floors. At street level is the venue’s café, bar, and bookshop whilst a short descent into the building’s basement reveals the intimate, 150-capacity concert space. It is warm, welcoming, and, tonight, very busy, a clear indication of the growing popularity of such events.
Her Ensemble, directed by violinist and founding member Ellie Consta, are here to perform their ‘Forgotten in History’ show which includes music written by women during the past couple of millennia. The programme was created as a direct response to the shocking discovery five years ago that less than 4% of the classical pieces performed worldwide had been written by women.
Joining Consta on stage initially are Haim Choi (violin), Georgie Davis (viola), and Nina King (cello). The string quartet open with a piece written by the Italian composer, lutenist, and singer of the late Renaissance period, Madulana Casulana, the very first woman to have her music printed and published.
They then fast forward to the present day and Caroline Shaw’s ‘Valencia’, investing her work with the same delicate texture, intricate melody, and deep respect as they had done Casulana’s from more than 400 years beforehand. Consta and Davis then perform an exhilarating duet on another contemporary composer, Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Five Postcards for Violin and Viola.’
Choi and King return to the stage for the quartet to perform the only piece of the entire evening that is composed by a man. The man in question is the 18th century French Violinist and conductor, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George. In keeping with many of his fellow female composers through the ages his name seems to have largely been forgotten over time. His being of mixed race would appear to have been a major contributory factor in his historical marginalisation.
The most moving piece of the evening was undoubtedly that written by the Jewish poet Isle Weber who had been murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. Ellie Consta dedicates this work to the people of Gaza and says that all proceeds from this concert will be donated to the Red Cross working in that area.
By then the string quartet had been joined by Lucía Polo Moreno on double bass. The five musicians then proceed to deliver in its entirety Clan, a new string orchestra piece in 10 short movements written by composer and cellist, Joanna Borrett and recorded by Her Ensemble. This narrative work set in the Scottish Highlands was given its world premiere at Birmingham’s Elgar Concert Hall in February this year.
Clan forges a strong connection between folk and classical music and the stories therein come to thrilling life in the interpretative hands of these five musicians who infuse the 10 movements with such passion, beauty, and feeling.
Her Ensemble conclude the concert with the late American classical composer, pianist, organist and music teacher, Florence Beatrice Price’s ‘Memory Mist’, originally created in the late 1940s for solo piano. Here it evolves into a highly nuanced, imaginative interpretation for a string quintet, bringing to a close an equally evocative evening of music which given its time and place serves to diffuse many of the barriers that continue to exist between the worlds of popular and classical music.
Events like this, held in local grassroots live music venues, help to break down much of the formality, rigidity, and perceived etiquette one often associates with classical music. In the hands of Her Ensemble this world suddenly becomes more accessible, more inclusive, as we are enabled to move away from any such strictures and preconceptions. When further account is taken of the group’s inherent subversion of gender norms, the entire experience becomes incredibly liberating.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Her Ensemble at Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
noisenights are brought to us by through the noise, the home of live classical music and whose stated aim is to reach audiences that might otherwise not experience world-class classical musicians.
And this evening’s performance was part of Leeds International Concert Season‘s Sound Out series – a journey into extraordinary classical music – which is run by Leeds City Council and schedules more than 200 concerts a year in the Leeds area.
