OTHER FORTHCOMING CONCERTS.

Purchasing of tickets for all concerts.

Tickets are available in advance online at  
www.iscaensemble.org.uk or www.ticketsource.co.uk

Sidmouth concert tickets are also available from

Paragon Books, 38 High Street, Sidmouth (01395 514516).

Tickets may also be obtained in person or by phone at

Exeter Visitor and Information & tickets tel. 01392 665885, 1 Dix's' Field, Exeter, EX1 1GF

 Chloé Stratta              Anna Marie McLachlan

Elgar : Violin Concerto. The concerto was composed for the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who gave the premiere in London in 1910, with the composer conducting. Plans by the recording company His Master's Voice to record the work with Kreisler and Elgar did not reach fruition, Instead, the composer made a recording with the teenaged Yehudi Menuhin that has remained in the catalogues since its first release in 1932.

Joo Yeon Sir.

Described by Strad Magazine as "exuberant... seductive... with bravura and oodles of personality" Korean-born British violinist Joo Yeon Sir is winner of the prestigious Arts Club Karl Jenkins Classical Music Award, in association with Classic FM, and the Royal College of Music's President's Award. She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Karl Jenkins and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, Fairfield Halls and at St. James's Palace for HRH The Prince of Wales. She regularly appears on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Scala Radio.

Her repertoire is striking and diverse. She has played concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Barber, Dvorak, Sibelius, Walton, Bruch and Brahms; other concerto repertoire includes Haydn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, and a particular interest in 20th century works - Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Elgar, Britten, Schnittke, Khachaturian and Shostakovich. In recital, she is equally at home in solo violin repertoire (Bach, Ysaye, Kreisler and Paganini) as she is in close collaboration with piano or guitar (the latter as one half of the Snowden-Sir Duo). Her collaboration with Sir Karl Jenkins has already resulted in two works especially written for her unique sound and personality - Lament for the Valley (which became part of his choral work Cantata Memoria) and Chatterbox! (originally for violin/piano, but now also orchestrated for violin/string orchestra).

Aged sixteen, Joo Yeon was overall Grand Prix Laureate at the Nedyalka Simeonova International Violin Competition in Bulgaria. After studying at the Royal College of Music, with Dr. Felix Andrievsky, in 2015-6 she was selected for the St. John's Smith Square young Artist Residency. She has also been a Tillett Trust Young Artist and the grateful recipient of many awards, from the Royal Philharmonic Society, Making Music and others.

Also a composer, Joo Yeon won the coveted BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year and her works have been premiered and performed at the Wigmore Hall and on BBC Radio 3. Her work, written for herself and duo guitar partner, Laura Snowden, was premiered on BBC Radio 3 to celebrate International Women's Day 2017.

The 2016-2017 season saw the release of two discs: the Deutsche Grammophon CD and world premiere of Sir Karl Jenkins' Cantata Memoria - For the Children, recorded with Sinfonia Cymru, and her first solo CD - Suites & Fantasies - with her duo partner Irina Andrievsky, which was released to great critical acclaim by Rubicon: "A dazzling debut... Joo Yeon Sir melds technical assurance with rare artistic sensibility" The Guardian.

2018 saw a busy residency at the Lichfield Festival, where she performed the complete Paganini Caprices for the first time, along with a world premiere by Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, concerto performances in Prague and at St John's Smith Square and The Lark Ascending at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, as well as recitals in London and in Cheltenham.

Last season saw her debut with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, plus concertos by Glazunov, Prokofiev, Bruch, Barber and Elgar, alongside recitals in London and at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Listen to Joo Yeon playing her latest composition for solo violin.

Elgar: Violin Concerto Yehudi Menuhin, Elgar / London S.O. 1932, restored

The Isca Ensemble is delighted to present a stunning programme with the excellent

University of Exeter Chapel Choir and its Musical Director Michael Graham.

Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams was written in 1938 as a tribute to Sir Henry Wood, and was first performed at the Royal Albert Hall with symphony orchestra and sixteen soloists, for whom the piece was specifically written, each one given a solo passage.  The words… "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank..." come from Act V of The Merchant of Venice – Lorenzo and Jessica are at Belmont, and sit listening to music, gazing at the stars and revelling in the magic of the night.  The music is exquisitely sweet and tender – at the premiere Rachmaninov, a guest of Sir Henry, listened to it and wept, declaring he had never been so moved by a piece of music.

Fauré's Requiem. Fauré wrote of the work, "Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.

Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No 8.  Dvořák tried to achieve a marked difference to his Symphony No 7, a stormy romantic work. No. 8 would be: "different from the other symphonies, with individual thoughts worked out in a new way". The Eighth is cheery and lyrical and draws its inspiration more from the Bohemian folk music that Dvořák loved.

Jordan Black enjoys a varied schedule of solo, chamber and orchestral engagements. He has appeared as Guest Principal with the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra, alongside work for the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta and City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. 

As a student, Jordan reached the Woodwind Final of the BBC Young Musician 2012. Since then, he has appeared as soloist with the Orchestra of the Swan, the London Mozart Players and the Bristol Ensemble. In summer 2014, he joined the New English Concert Orchestra as soloist for a series of open-air concerts, performing to a combined audience of over 30,000 people, at stately homes around the country.

A passionate chamber musician, Jordan has performed at the Wigmore Hall, Clarence House, St Martin in the Fields, the Purcell Room and Brazil's Festival de Inverno. He has appeared with members of the London Chamber Orchestra, London Conchord Ensemble, Ensemble Cymru and Notus Winds. He also features on a new recording of compositions by Buxton Orr alongside tenor Nicky Spence and members of the Edinburgh Quartet.

Jordan trained at the Purcell School, Royal College of Music Junior Department and as a full-scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, where he graduated with First-Class Honours. He went on to hold a Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music. His teachers have included Timothy Lines, Mark van de Wiel, Andrew Marriner, Patrick Messina and Guy Cowley. More recently, he has studied with Yehuda Gilad in Sweden and Los Angeles. 

Away from the concert platform, outreach and teaching projects form an important part of Jordan's musical philosophy. He has given workshops in schools for the Concordia Foundation, mentored young composers on the Sound and Music Summer School and taught on the National Youth Orchestra of Kenya Residential Scheme.  He currently teaches privately in London and coaches chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department.

Luka Okros has established himself as one of the most promising pianists of his generation. Okros’s performances have been praised by critics as “intense, strong and natural, with an impressive creativity”. Lang Lang said about his performance of Liszt’s infamous Hungarian Rhapsody: “In such a technical work, he does not deprive musicality. This is a rarity!”.

By the age of 27, Luka had won many awards, including Piano Award by Tabor Foundation at the Verbier Festival, top prizes at the Hong Kong Inter­national Piano Competition, the Valencia Iturbi Prize International Competition and the Scottish Inter­national Piano Competition.

Luka has already performed in some of the world’s greatest concert halls – Carnegie Hall, Het Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Rudolfinum, Palau de la Musica Valencia, Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Liszt Academy, Maison de la Radio. Highlights of the season include performances in Finland, Hungary, Belgium, USA, Norway, UK, China, Georgia, Ukraine, Morocco and Austria.

His first commercial recording of Schumann was recently released on the DiscAuverS label and is available on Amazon, Spotify and Apple Music.

In addition to his career as a concert pianist, Luka works on creating an album of his own compositions. One of the pieces was filmed and premiered by Het Concertgebouw’s Sessions. Scores of his works are published by Master Music Publications.

After graduating from the London Royal College of Music and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the Art Council of England has granted him the Exceptional Talent Visa. Currently Luka is based in London.

As a social media influencer, Luka’s Instagram has more than 50K followers.

Luka Okros performing Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 in C sharp Minor at the

Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition (Tel Aviv).