Sunday 5^th Feb 2023 – 3.00pm

County Buildings, Wigtown

Ensemble Renard was founded in 2018 by musicians and friends from the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School. At its core a wind quintet, Ensemble Renard puts on exciting and varied performances for audiences of all backgrounds. After less than six months of playing together, Ensemble Renard won the Royal Academy of Music’s Nicholas Blake Prize for wind chamber music, and from there have gone on to give regular recitals and workshops across the country, too much acclaim.

Ensemble Renard carefully curate compelling and contrasting programmes tailored to each audience, aiming to take repertoire rarely given the light of day to audiences from London to the Hebrides and beyond. From Gershwin to Knussen, each piece they play demonstrates the kaleidoscopic versatility of the ensemble.

In 2021, Ensemble Renard were awarded a Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music, where they continue to explore more diverse repertoire, commission new works, and expand the boundaries of their ensemble beyond the wind quintet format to include repertoire with strings, piano, and voices. Members of Ensemble Renard regularly coach chamber ensembles at the Academy, run open rehearsals and give instrument-specific classes throughout the year.

Ensemble Renard champion new music, and so far in 2022 have premiered over ten new commissions. They have given several recitals at the Royal Academy of Music, working with, and learning from esteemed composers including Hans Abrahamsen and John Woolrich in preparation for performances of their repertoire. Ensemble Renard’s 2022 season includes a collaboration with the Stomping Ground composers collective titled ‘In The Room’, a multi-sensory programme of new commissions to be performed across the country.

The Ensemble’s members are some of the most promising young classical musicians of the moment, who have worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Riot Ensemble, Manchester Camerata, London Philharmonic Orchestra, English Touring Opera, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, and the English National Opera. In 2022-3, two members will be working as Fellows with the Southbank Sinfonia.

Ensemble Renard’s concert diary has something for everyone. They can be found performing traditional recitals at music clubs up and down the country, putting on family concerts with narrator and school-based workshops, recitals in collaboration with organisations including Wigmore Hall and Spitalfields Music, in addition to performances at new music festivals in collaboration with a host of different composers. In 2021 they were given a Tunnell Trust Award, which will see them give recitals throughout Scotland in 2022 and 2023.