Marsyas Quartet will play a programme of music by Mozart, Bach, Andrew M. Wilson, Judith Weir and Sungji Hong at St Nicholas Priory on Saturday 21 May.
The performance is part of the priory’s New Season Series, making professional classical music accessible by public transport, as well as Exeter Dream Festival, a ten-week programme of events celebrating Cygnet Theatre’s 40th anniversary that continues until the beginning of July.
The flute and string quartet, composed of Julie Hill on violin, Emma Welton on viola, Annabel Rooney on cello and Ruth Molins on flute, will explore how composers from different centuries and cultures have expressed the idea that dreams are essential to our humanity.
Marsyas Quartet, clockwise from top left: Annabel Rooney, Ruth Molins, Julie Hill and Emma Welton.
Julie Hill is a violinist specialising in early and contemporary music who performs in ensembles including Devon Baroque Orchestra and Corelli Orchestra and Ensemble.
She is a founder member of Exeter Contemporary Sounds, which devises programmes of contemporary music by established and local composers, and teaches at Exeter Cathedral School among others.
Emma Welton plays violin and viola and composes music which often involves listening and recording in her habitat. She likes to make new music with adventurous musicians of all ages and experience and with artists who work in different forms.
She runs A Quiet Night In with Tony Whitehead, creating performances exploring the creative possibilities in quiet/silence. She is also a Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra musician, touring the south west with its chamber groups and co-leading its Exeter Community Family Orchestra with Hugh Nankivell.
Annabel Rooney is a former National Youth Orchestra musician who won a University of Cambridge instrumental award before completing a PhD on eighteenth-century opera. She moved to Devon in 2006 to combine composition, ensemble playing and instrumental teaching.
Her music has been published by Selah and Oxford University Press and performed by choirs including those at Exeter and Ely cathedrals as well as broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
With Marsyas Quartet, Devon-born Ruth Molins is also a founding member of Flute Cake, Zephyr Duo, Volo Trio and performs with A Quiet Night In.
She performed as a soloist with Exeter Symphony Orchestra in 2012 and 2015 and has been featured on Phonic FM, Soundart Radio, BBC Radio Devon and BBC Radio 3.
During the 2020 pandemic she gave live-streamed lockdown performances connecting weekly with listeners worldwide. She also teaches at Exeter School and elsewhere.
Dreaming in Sound is at 7pm on Saturday 21 May 2022 at St Nicholas Priory.
Visit the St Nicholas Priory website for more information and to book tickets.
