2011:  NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA with MARTYN JACKSON (Violin)

Of Sweet Sounds

by Rosa Maria Staves

2011:  NORTHERN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

with MARTYN JACKSON (Violin)

Sidetracks & Detours are so pleased that Rochdale Music Society are streamlining and archiving their existing reviews, stretching back fifteen years and more, that they invited me to select some favourites from these archives for us to publish occasionally in our Monday to Friday daily blogs. Today´s review was written in 2011 by Shirley Mitchell who, over several decades, served RMS in a number of capacities.

The Rochdale Music Society, with the most generous support of the late Doris Knowles, was able to engage the Northern Chamber Orchestra led by Nicholas Ward, and also the extremely talented violin soloist, Martyn Jackson, for a popular and well-loved programme of Beethoven’s Overture: Coriolan, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony.

Popular and well-loved is only half the story, as the standard of excellence for this orchestra and soloist made up the other half. The thirty members of the orchestra displayed an amazing, seemingly effortless facility to sound as one and with full command of the most exquisite expression under the leadership of Mr. Ward. It was hard to believe that he was able to achieve this precision and subtlety from his leader’s seat in the orchestra. That, of course, is the sign of a really good orchestra and one which listens well.

The young Martyn Jackson matched the orchestra’s brilliant ensemble with his own expressive and virtuosic talent. There is no doubt that the music world will hear more of this rising star.

British violinist Martyn Jackson (right) was born in 1988 and has performed as a solo artist and chamber musician throughout the UK, much of Europe and the Middle East. Martyn studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”, Berlin with Professor Stephan Picard and is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Professor Itzhak Rashkovsky. He was a selected artist on the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme in 2013 and is a Concordia Foundation Artist.

Martyn made his recital debut at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, as part of the Philharmonia Orchestra Martin Musical Scholarship Fund Prize Winners’ Recital Scheme. He was also invited to perform with principal players from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in Milan and Rome. Previous seasons have included performances of the Brahms, Elgar, Prokofiev, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky.

He also played Mendelssohn and Stravinsky concertos, and a European tour with cellist Henri Demarquette encompassing venues such as the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus in Berlin and Les Invalides in Paris. As an orchestral musician, Martyn has frequently served as Assistant Concertmaster of the LSO, Philharmonia Orchestra and BBC SSO.

Jackson also became a member of the Adderbury Ensemble’s regular members.

The Adderbury Ensemble (left) brings together some of the UK’s top musicians to perform the world’s finest chamber music.

Formed in 1986 by a group of the UK’s finest young freelance musicians, the Adderbury Ensemble have always had a flexible line-up, mixing and matching different players to deliver performances primarily as quartets, quintets or small chamber groups and occasionally adding further instruments to play symphonies and concertos by the likes of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn or Brahms – with or without a conductor.

Everyone who performs as part of the Adderbury Ensemble is an eminent instrumentalist, usually a principal player with one or more of the leading orchestras of Europe. From their early years playing Sunday evening concerts in the beautiful village of Adderbury in north Oxfordshire, the group have gone on to develop a global reputation. They perform regularly throughout Britain and other European nations, and played their first concerts in the United States in Spring 2016. They also helped found the world-famous Oxford Coffee Concerts at the Holywell Music Room, the oldest purpose-built music venue in Europe.

The Adderbury Ensemble have released ten recordings in their own right since their first CD was released in 1997, and individual members have recorded many more, either as soloists or as members of other groups.

update information by Rosa Marie Staves