Phaedra Ensemble

We’re Looking forward to getting out and about this spring with concerts around the Uk. We’re focusing on Steve Reich as part of @kingsplacelondon Memory Unwrapped series that also includes the UK premier of @annathorvalds beautiful Enigma for string quartet. We’ll be doing the same programme at @sva__ , Stroud where we’ll be luxuriating in their @dbaudiotechnik soundscape system. This month we’ll team up with the wonderful @dottelettsbean for a programme of Cassandra Miller, Meredith Monk and new work from @theironham . To finish things off, we’re playing at @bristolnewmusic for the first time alongside @harrygorskibrown All Info and links up top. 👆 Hope you come join us somewhere 2. 📸 @dimitri_djuric 3. Lotte Betts-Dean 📸: Matthew Johnson 3. Harry Górski-Brown

Review! Nice words from Sequenza21 on our Slow Change show at @kingsplacelondon last month. Full review 👆 📸 @carlottacardana

Waiting to go on at Hall One... Some quiet (and some less quiet!) backstage moments with Phaedra Ensemble, right before a spellbinding, sold-out programme of Reich, Coltrane and Thorvaldsdottir a couple of weeks ago. 📸 © Kings Place - @carlottacardana

After performing Slow Change at @sva__ last weekend to such a great audience, we can’t wait to return to Stroud for @hiddennotes in September. We’ll be performing works by @meredithmonk , @carolineadelaideshaw and @gavinbryars . Such a great line up over the entire weekend too. Link in our bio #stroud #stringquartet #contemporarymusic #hiddennotesfestival

Next Saturday, 21st March, @sva__ presents Slow Change: The Music of Steve Reich At the Brunel Goods Shed, Stroud Performed by @phaedraensemble Presented in glorious d&b Soundscape @dbaudiotechnik ⸻ Tickets via link in bio ⸻ The programme explores musical time as something physical and evolving — built from repetition, pattern and gradual transformation. At its centre is the music of Steve Reich, whose work fundamentally changed how we understand pulse and process and continues to shape composers working today. Alongside Reich, the programme includes the UK premiere of @annathorvalds Enigma for string quartet and John Coltrane’s Africa re-imagined by Jamie Hamilton.

Sometimes the smallest shift can change everything. In Slow Change, @phaedraensemble explore the hypnotic sound world of Steve Reich, the musical ideas that shaped his work, and how they continue to inspire. Across some of his most seminal pieces, Reich reveals how subtle changes in pattern can transform what we hear. That spirit of transformation runs through the programme. John Coltrane’s Africa, heard in a new arrangement by Jamie Hamilton, captures the rhythms and energy that helped shape Reich’s musical thinking. And in the UK premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Enigma, a deceptively vast soundscape emerges from just four acoustic instruments. Ready to be changed? Join us on Friday 20 March in Hall One 🎻

Join us in Stroud on Saturday 21st March for an immersive listening experience exploring the musical world of @stevereich , one of the founders of American Minimalist music. The concert will be presented in glorious @dbaudiotechnik soundscape, the most advanced surround sound system in the world. 🤯 Tickets and info available from the link in our bio or from @sva__ #stroud #stroudmusic #stroudartists #contemporary music #stringquartet @sva__ @svajohnstgallery @hiddennotes___ @goodonpaperstroud @stroudartsfestival 🙏

Next month we bring Slow Change to Kings Place as part of their Memory Unwrapped series, before performing the programme again at the Goods Shed in Stroud, presented in glorious d&b Soundscape. @sva__ @dbaudiotechnik The programme explores musical time as something physical and evolving — built from repetition, pattern, and gradual transformation. At its centre is the music of Steve Reich, whose work fundamentally changed how we understand pulse and process, and continues to shape composers working today. Alongside Reich, we perform the UK premiere of @annathorvalds Enigma for string quartet, unfolding in a vast sonic landscape, and John Coltrane’s Africa re-imagined by Jamie Hamilton — tracing a lineage of influence and sound across generations. 20 March — Kings Place, London 21 March — The Goods Shed, Stroud (d&b Soundscape) Tickets via link in bio. @sva__ @kingsplacelondon @annathorvalds @stevereich @theironham

TODAY: Music by @arcadefire ’s Richard Reed Parry opens this concert of sumptuous, 21st century compositions for string quartet, performed by Phaedra Ensemble with Lotte Betts-Dean, a vocalist praised by The Guardian for her “unmissable, urgent musicality”. Following its collaboration with American composer Meredith Monk, performer and Godmother of the New York experimental music scene, Phaedra performs the composer’s only string quartet, String Songs. Mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean then joins the quartet to present works by Kate Whitley and John Tavener, as well as Cassandra Miller’s modern masterpiece Thanksong, a tender reflection on Beethoven’s late Quartet in A minor (Op.132). 🎫 QUARTET FOR HEART & BREATH @phaedraensemble & @dottelettsbean 🗓️ Mon 23 February, 7.30pm 📍 The Guildhall Lens Studio, @portsmouthguildhall Tickets and more info available via the link in our bio. #ThisIsChamberMusic #ClassicalMusic #PhaedraEnsemble #LotteBettsDean #ArcadeFire #PortsmouthMusic #PortsmouthEvents #PortsmouthGuildhall #ArcadeFire

Announcing: A Mouth In Search Of A Voice, a new music and multimedia work by composer Jamie Hamilton (@theironham ) and contemporary classic music group Phaedra Ensemble (@phaedraensemble ), exploring the territory between spoken language and musical sound, through the stammered voice. Jamie is looking for people who stammer to join free creative workshops in North Kent, London, Bristol and online, to help create a ‘recorded tapestry’ of stammered voices. 🗣️ Through a series of workshops, participants will collectively explore their voices with professional musicians through exercises drawn from theatre, music and storytelling — experimenting with the ways to navigate, reroute and reimagine language as stammerers. The material recorded will be woven into a new piece of music by composer and stammerer, Jamie Hamilton. The final work will be premiered by Phaedra Ensemble in October 2026 with live performances at the Historic Dockyard Chatham (@dockyard.chatham ) and Arnolfini Bristol (@arnolfiniarts ), combining the workshop recordings with live music and video. Open to anyone who stammers, 16+. No experience needed — just curiosity and a willingness to experiment with your voice. North Kent Workshop: Saturday 18 April, 12-4pm — Sun Pier House, Chatham (15 places) The workshops last around four hours. You’ll be working in a group alongside musicians, in a welcoming, stammering-friendly environment, with an experienced support team on hand. If you have any questions about participating in the workshops, contact [email protected] Sign up for free via the link in our bio. ✏️ ~~~~~~~~~~ ‘A Mouth In Search Of A Voice’ is commissioned by Cement Fields and Phaedra Ensemble, supported by Arnolfini and @stammauk . It is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through @aceagrams . Image: Phaedra Ensemble, King’s Place, 2023. Photo: Dimitri Djuric

NEW TRACK! “Index Of Four” I’m thrilled to release/unleash Index Of Four as part of the @collapsingdrums compilation “Collapsing Tape: Experiments In Rupture A Repair”. This is an instrumental edit from a forthcoming project called An Index Of Everything - a retelling of creation myths through obsessive taxonomies, lists and measurements. I’ve been developing the project with @phaedraensemble over the past year. Last month I performed a draft of it @cafeotodalston , hosted by the label, in which I memorably (for some) simulated intercourse with a mountain on stage. The rest of the compilation is great, and it has some of my favourite artists involved. I mastered about half the tracks on it, and it was an eye opening and inspiring process. Collapsing Drums is doing amazingly eclectic but still somehow cohesive work. More soon. Credits: Instruments (highly mangled): Phaedra Ensemble Violin: @phillius_g Viola: @richjonesviola Flute: Daniel Shao Bass Clarinet: @georgeclarinet

Love performing at @stablesmk 🙌🏻 Key Stage 3 & 4 with the brilliant @phaedraensemble @musicintheround We:Compose 🎵 @luciaporcedda260