Friday 28 September 2012 at 7.30pm The David Dutch Memorial Concert
Berkeley Ensemble
Krommer: Oboe Quartet No.1 in C
Lennox Berkeley: String Trio, Op.19
Joseph Horovitz: Oboe Quartet, Op.18
Britten: Phantasy Quartet, Op.2
Schubert: String Trio in B flat, D.471
Mozart: Oboe Quartet, K.370
The Berkeley Ensemble was formed by eight outstanding young musicians who met as members of Britains's Orchestral Academy, Southbank Sinfonia. It quickly made its name and performs regularly in London and across the UK, championing British works alongside more mainstream repertoire. The ensemble takes its name from two British composers of the last hundred years, father and son Sir Lennox and Michael Berkeley.Members of the Berkeley Ensemble perform regularly with orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Manchester Camerata.
In March 2011 they gave an outstanding concert in the Hoylake Chamber Concert Series as a quintet of clarinet and strings, playing the clarinet quintets by Coleridge-Taylor and by Brahms (amongst other works). For this concert in memory of David Dutch, it is appropriate that they are joined by oboist James Turnbull, because the oboe was David's first instrument.
Classical music on Merseyside owes a great debt of gratitude to David Dutch. Over the years, he was involved in a number of organisations which sought to make the playing of great music available to wider audiences.
He founded the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra in 1951 and engaged the services of a succession of professional conductors as music director, starting with Zubin Mehta in 1958. Always seeking to encourage talent, many distinguished musicians benefited from experience with the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra, including the composer and academic Edwin Roxborough, violinist Christopher Hirons and clarinettist Janet Hilton. Simon Rattle played timpani and continuo as a member of the orchestra for several years, and it was here that he had his first opportunities to conduct an orchestra. Sir Simon is now the Honorary President of the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra.
David's contributions to the music of Merseyside have not only been through the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra. He has performed in countless concerts of orchestral, choral and chamber music with various orchestras and ensembles. As a player of cor anglais and oboe d'amore as well as oboe, he has always been in demand.
Other organizations that David worked for include the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, Hoylake Chamber Concert Society, and the Rodewald Society, on whose committees he served for many years.
It is hard in a short space to do justice to the immense contribution made to music by this man over more than half a century. There can be few musicians who, in an amateur capacity, could have done so much both as a performer and as an organiser.