The Alkyona Quartet was formed in London in 2018. Since then, they have impressed audiences in the UK and abroad and were certainly admired by their Wallingford audience when they played for us in 2023. The quartet have an innovative approach to programming, enjoying presenting a mixture of the familiar and the unusual. They also make a point of collaboration with other musicians, frequently outside the world of classical music.

The C major Quartet from Haydn’s early development, composed in 1771, is one of his first masterpieces in the genre, and looks forward to his mature style while its slow movement and fugal finale cast a backward glance to the Baroque. 

Zeher (Poison) was prompted by a stubborn sore throat suffered by the Indian-American composer Reena Esmail whose music reflects both the classical music of India and Western composition. 

Henry Purcell’s string Fantasias, originally composed for viol consort, are a tribute to his predecessors in an obsolete style; their abstract patterns weaving fascinating shapes in the listener’s mind.

Intimate Letters comes from the last year of Janáček’s life, inspired by the avalanche of love letters that he sent to a married woman, Kamilla Stösslova, 38 years his junior and who did not reciprocate his advances.