 Adrian Butterfield, violin
Jean Paterson, violin
Rachel Stott, viola
Ruth Alford, cello
Founded in 1990, the Revolutionary Drawing Room combines a historical approach to interpretation with a commitment to lively and communicative performances. The ensemble gives convincing readings of less well-known works as well as revealing fascinating detail and colour in the familiar Viennese classics. They have performed at international festivals in Stuttgart and Potsdam, toured Holland, Austria, Switzerland and Canada and taken part in NFMS and Early Music Network touring schemes. They have held a residency at Southampton University and at the English Haydn Festival and have performed at the Leeds International Schubert Conference.
They have recorded eight CDs of Boccherini and Donizetti quartets for CPO that have received glowing reviews worldwide. Stanley Sadie selected the Boccherini Quartets Op 39 and Op 41 amongst his 'Critics' Choice' and two of the Boccherini Quartets Op 58 were chosen by Columns Classics to feature in a film for Dutch television. They have also made several specially-recorded programmes for BBC Radio 3 including works by Storace as well as the Mendelssohn Octet.
The ensemble works regularly with Rachel Brown, flute, Colin Lawson, clarinet, Alastair Mitchell, bassoon, Roger Montgomery, horn and Geoffrey Govier, fortepiano.
www.revolutionarydrawingroom.com
ADRIAN BUTTERFIELD is now established as one of the most versatile period-instrument musicians of his generation in the UK and abroad working as a conductor and violinist-director with both modern- and period-instrument orchestras, and as a concerto soloist, chamber musician and teacher. A former chorister of St. Paul's Cathedral and a graduate of Trinity College Cambridge, he is Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Festival and Associate Director of the London Handel Festival and directs ensembles such as the London Handel Orchestra, the Hanover Band and the Theatre of Early Music, Montreal across Europe and North America. Recent recordings include CPE Bach sonatas (ATMA), JS Bach's Concerto for oboe and violin with John Abberger (Analekta) and Handel's Complete Violin Sonatas (Somm).
He leads two chamber ensembles in London: the London Handel Players, whose two recent recordings, of Handel's Op.5 trio sonatas and 'Handel at Home' (Somm), have been highly acclaimed and also the Revolutionary Drawing Room which specializes in classical and romantic music on period instruments. He is Professor of Baroque Violin at the Royal College of Music.
Recent highlights include rare performances on period instruments of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Hanover Band, concerts with Emma Kirkby and the London Handel Players in the UK and Purcell's The Fairy Queen in Romania. Future plans include the release of recordings of sonatas by Leclair (Naxos), Handel's Op.2 trio sonatas (Somm) and Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in E flat RV 254 (BIS).
He is married to the flautist and recorder player Rachel Brown and they have one daughter.
JEAN PATERSON was born in north Pembrokeshire into a farming family, moving later to Hampshire. She read music at Oxford, studying the violin with Emanuel Hurwitz, and at the Royal Academy of Music with Manoug Parikian. She later took up the baroque violin with Micaela Comberti and John Holloway, and now plays with many of the leading period instrument ensembles in Britain, such as The King's Consort, Florilegium, London Handel Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, English Baroque Soloists, The Sixteen, and the Canadian group 'The Theatre of Early Music'.
Her special love is chamber music, which she indulges in with groups including the Revolutionary Drawing Room and Canzona. She has been guest leader of the Dunedin Consort in their performances of St Matthew Passion, and for the Woodmansterne Collection, playing Beethoven Symphonies. She has had a long association with the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra, for which she was violin coach for many years. She is married to the baritone Peter Harvey, and they have two sons.
RACHEL STOTT read music at Churchill College, Cambridge and subsequently undertook postgraduate studies in viola at the GSMD. She has since pursued a career as both composer and viola player and has performed across the UK and Europe with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Hanover Band, New Music Players and other contemporary music groups.
Her works have been performed at major London venues, at the Spitalfields, Greenwich, Cheltenham and Swaledale festivals in the UK, and abroad in Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Japan and Slovenia. She has produced a CD, Airborne, of contemporary song which includes two of her own song cycles and features her playing on the viola and viola d'amore. In 2001 she wrote the series Harmony and Invention for BBC Radio 3 and the following year was commissioned by Yorkshire Arts to compose one of four 'Yorkshire Quartets' for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet. In 2003 she was Composer-in-Residence at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, which led to a number of works inspired by observation of medical procedures. In 2004 she composed a children's opera, The Cuckoo Tree, based on the book by Joan Aiken, which was premiered in July at the Frome Festival. She has recently completed a second string quartet, The Enchanted Lyre for the Dante String Quartet.
RUTH ALFORD has established herself as a well-respected chamber musician and continuo-cellist with many ensembles and chamber groups in London. She graduated from Manchester University with an honours degree in music and the Proctor Gregg Performance Award after studying cello there with Bernard Gregor-Smith and the Lindsay Quartet. Further studies followed at the Royal Academy of Music in London with David Strange, Amadeus Quartet, Sidney Griller, Jenny Ward-Clarke and also William Pleeth, whilst gaining performing experience in a wide variety of musical genres ranging from solo recitals to jazz and music theatre.
Indeed, Ruth still thrives on a broad musical diet from Baroque to Contemporary as well as sharing her enthusiasm for music through various educational outlets. She performs and records widely throughout Europe, the Far East and America as a principal player and continuo-cellist with the English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as well as chamber ensembles including Brandenburg Consort, The Music Collection, Fiori Musicali, Florilegium, Configure8 and the Revolutionary Drawing Room.
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Programmes for 2009 - 200th centenary of Mendelssohn's birth and Haydn's death
'Every moment dies a man, every moment one is born' (Tennyson)
 Programme 1
Haydn Op. 77 No. 2
Mendelssohn Op. 13
Beethoven Op. 74 'The Harp' (composed 1809)
Programme 2
Haydn Op. 77 No.1
Mendelssohn Op. 12
Beethoven Op. 95 (composed 1810)
'Late Works'
Haydn Op. 103
Mendelssohn Op. 80
Schubert Great G major OR Beethoven Grosse Fuge
Octet Programmes
The Octets
Mendelssohn Octet Op. 20
Spohr Double Quartet
Mendelssohn and the Bach Revival
Mendelssohn Octet Op. 20
Mendelsohn early fugues
Bach - fugues from 'The Art of Fugue' for various combinations of the 8 of us
Dramatic readings from Eduard Devrient's account of Mendelssohn's 'passion' for the Matthew Passion
Devrient was a friend of Mendelssohn, an Opera singer and later theatre director who was also the author of a history of German histrionic art. Unsurprisingly therefore, his account of Mendelssohn's 'ardent longing' to possess and then to put on a performance of Bach's Matthew Passion is highly coloured and Romantic.
Other programmes (not specifically for 2009)
Italian Programme
Boccherini Op. 33 No 3
Cherubini/Donizetti quartets
Wolf 'Italian Serenade'
Puccini 'Crisantemi'
The Quartet in England 1780-90
Selection of repertoire including Haydn, plus composers whose works are known to have been performed in England, including John Marsh, Pierre Vachon, Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, Felice Giardini, and Dieudonné-Pascal Pieltan. This programme was put together with the help of Dr. Meredith McFarlane and formed the basis of an event discussing the early string quartet in England at the Royal College of Music.
Mixed programmes
Programmes for The Revolutionary Drawing Room with Rachel Brown, flute, Colin Lawson, clarinet, Alastair Mitchell, bassoon, Roger Montgomery, horn and Geoffrey Govier, fortepiano are also available on request, for example:
Clarinet Quintet programme with Colin Lawson
Haydn Quartet Op.33 no.3
Weber Clarinet Quintet
Mozart Clarinet Quintet
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