Trinity students have been taking part in an exciting project called #VQCreate, an online composition initiative with the Villiers Quartet during the initial lockdown period in 2020.
Selected students from Year 9 to Year 11 have been writing music for a professional string quartet. Students collaborated remotely with the musicians and received guidance on string quartet composition and feedback on their works-in-progress from Elizabeth Kelly, Associate Professor in Music Composition at the University of Nottingham, and mentors from music students at Oxford University. For many of them, this was their first-ever composition!
The final compositions have now been recorded and will be streamed live as part of the symposium: Diversity and British String Quartet which will take place 14-16 June 2021.
The string quartet – and British classical music in general – are sometimes associated with elitism and exclusivity, yet historically the genre has attracted composers who defy this stereotype: women, BAME musicians and others from traditionally marginalised groups such as Ethel Smyth, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Elizabeth Maconchy. To find out more about this project click here.