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Sacconi Residency Weekend 2022
07-09 October 2022
Director: Matt Shipton
The Sacconi Quartet present their second Residency Weekend with three days of concerts, workshops and performances featuring music by Philip Glass and Beethoven, a musical installation by local artist Alison Neighbour, local schoolchildren in concert and of course our Pro/Am concert where amateur musicians have the opportunity to perform with the Sacconi Quartet.
The weekend started with a workshop at St Eansywthe’s Primary School, where pupils had a chance to explore composing techniques with local composer John Woolrich.
The Weekend officially launched on Friday night at the recently opened, Folkestone Art Gallery in the heart of the Creative Quarter.
Music on Impermanent Land was a new collaboration between artist Alison Neighbour and the Sacconi Quartet in association with SALT + EARTH FESTIVAL. Set in the beautiful natural surroundings of the Warren, between the Sea and the crumbling chalk cliffs, passers-by were invited to stop a while and feel the fragility and possibilities for transformation held within the liminal landscape. The audience entered the chalk circle holding pieces of chalk, naturally eroded from the cliffs. As they held this piece of deep time in their hands, the music of Philip Glass performed by the Sacconi Quartet invited them to imagine what has been and what may come.
“Begin, and cease, and then again begin” – Matthew Arnold (Dover Beach)
After a morning on the beach, the Sacconis de-camped to the Quarterhouse, Creative Folkestone’s flagship performance space for ‘Beethoven in the Dark’. This two-part concert began with a conversation and intimate musical performance to plunge the audience into the centre of the sound of one of the most extraordinary pieces of musical technology ever invented, the string quartet, and culminated in one of the greatest pieces ever written for it: Beethoven’s Opus 131.
Enhanced by lighting and elements of theatricality and played from memory by the virtuosic Sacconi String Quartet, this evening was created in collaboration with theatre and opera director Tom Morris (War Horse, Touching the Void, Death of Klinghoffer, L’Orfeo) and lighting designer Mike Gunning (Grace Jones on Tour).
“There is an intensity to playing op. 131 even in a conventional setting, with the manuscript and stage lights. Remove the music stands and plunge us into the dark, and this intensity is heightened. Our awareness of each other has to be even greater. We are listening out for each other’s breath, not just musical gestures. Performing like this is never the same, but time often compresses and forty minutes feels like a few seconds. We are fully present in the moment and the experience of playing as one.” Sacconi Quartet 2022
