AVISON ENSEMBLE

Avison Ensemble

Despite having written over eighty string concertos and being hailed by the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as "the most important English concerto composer of the 18th century", Charles Avison's music is still rarely performed on either modern or period instruments. There have been many recordings of Avison's famous arrangements of Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas, however, it is astonishing that this CD of Twelve Concertos opus 6 represents the first ever recording of a complete opus by Charles Avison.

Several years ago, a colleague and I discovered a collection of eighteenth century music hidden away at the back of a cupboard. This turned out to be a number of concertos of the hitherto little known Newcastle born composer Charles Avison. Excited by the originality and freshness of the music, The Avison Ensemble was formed with the aim of enhancing public awareness of Charles Avison and the many other neglected British composers of the baroque period - composers thoroughly overshadowed by the brilliant career of George Frederick Handel, who was living and working in London at the time.

Comprising some of Europe's leading baroque musicians, The Avison Ensemble is furthering the revival of the once famous Newcastle Subscription Concerts originally established and promoted by Charles Avison himself. We have chosen to perform on period instruments in order to recreate as close as possible the distinctive 'sound world' that Charles Avison would have known. Whilst other works from the baroque and early classical periods are played, The Avison Ensemble is unique in having its own composer along with a substantial repertoire of his music as yet unperformed in modern times. Miraculously, we have added to this repertoire with the recent acquisition of two of Avison's original workbooks!

In 2001, with the assistance of The Heritage Lottery Fund, and members of The Charles Avison Society, we purchased, at Sotheby's auction rooms in London, the first ever Avison workbook to surface. Incredibly, less than a year later, a second book was discovered and acquired by The Avison Ensemble. Both manuscripts contain many unpublished works by the composer and several of his contemporaries - an exciting find for the musical world.

Today, The Avison Ensemble introduces new audiences to Charles Avison's music through an intensive touring, publishing and recording schedule; a thriving education outreach programme; subscription concerts and radio broadcasts. For more information, or to join The Charles Avison Society, please contact us or visit our web site. We hope you enjoy our performance and Charles Avison's music on this Naxos CD!

Gordon Dixon
Executive Director
The Avison Ensemble.

www.avisonensemble.com
email: info@avisonensemble.com

Albums featuring this artist are available for download from ClassicsOnline.com

Role: Ensemble
Album Title	Catalogue No	Work Category