St Mary’s Church Westerham
Sunday afternoon 25th February at 4pm
Ensemble Cabrera
Piano Trios by Beethoven and Schubert
Jane Gomm – violin
John Lacy – cello
Carolyn Cabrera – piano
Booking Information
Tickets are £10 to include a glass of wine/fruit cup. Children under 12 are free. Seating is unreserved Tickets will be available on the door, but you will appreciate that we would prefer to have your booking in advance. Please therefore either:
(1) send an email to info@visitwesterham.org.uk and make a bank transfer to The Westerham Town Partnership. Our bank details are: Sort Code 60-23-22 Account number 80057977
Please use reference “Ukraine+your surname”. Tickets will be sent by email.
(2) Send a cheque with a covering letter to “Ukrainian Concert”, 1 Squerryes Park Cottages, Goodley Stock Rd, Westerham TN16 1RD. Please tell us your email address, if you have one.
The MAMA Foundation Charity
We have chosen to help the MAMA Foundation Charity in Ternopil, as we are greatly impressed by their organisation and management. It was set up by Iryna Kovalska and Ohla Misko and their representative in the UK is Halyna Krynytska, well known to many of us in Westerham. They work with a small network of volunteers and buy equipment, vehicles, medicines, rations and clothing for the military. Goods collected in the UK are transported by volunteers to Ukraine, Being run entirely by volunteers, MAMA has no overheads and your help is “only few handshakes” from the people who receive it.
MAMA FOUNDATION Ukraine Charity registration ERDPOU 47715401
The Musical Programme
Beethoven Piano Trio in C minor Opus 1 No 3
First performed in 1795 when Beethoven was 25
Despite being designated Op. 1, these trios were not Beethoven’s first published works, but he felt they were his earliest compositions that were marketable enough for him to introduce his style of writing to the musical public.
Painted by Riedel, Beethoven, aged 31 , is not recognisable as the older man we see in most pictures
Schubert Piano Trio in B flat Opus 99
Written in 1827, the last year of Schubert’s life, when he was 31.
This music was not published until 8 years after his death. Although he wrote nine symphonies, 600 songs and lots of pieces for piano and other chamber music (including the famous Trout Quintet), Schubert wrote only one other piano trio.
Ensemble Cabrera – Our Story
It could be said that Ensemble Cabrera owes its origins to the Covid pandemic and is evidence that good things can indeed flow from adversity. When lockdown first struck, the three musicians were already established as regular performers together in the Royal Tunbridge Wells Symphony Orchestra (RTWSO), but to everyone’s extreme frustration all orchestral activity was then ruled out for many months at a stretch. The “Rule of Six” finally came to the rescue, however, and chamber music pursuits in smaller groups became a viable possibility as a means of saving the collective musical sanity.
Ensemble Cabrera was born!
Carolyn Cabrera is an alumna of the Royal College of Music. She graduated with the Dip.RCM and Postgraduate Advanced Certificate and has performed throughout the UK as recital soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. She also has a wide and varied teaching career and currently teaches the piano at Sevenoaks School and the Granville School.
In addition to participating frequently in local concerts, both as pianist, and also as a violinist in the RTWSO, she is also a regular pianist at chamber music courses and accompanies several choirs.
In her spare time she is a keen cyclist and can often be spotted dressed in the Kent Velo Girls’ pinks.
Jane Gomm has been a member of several London chamber orchestras, including The London Mozart Players and The City of London Sinfonia. Foreign tours have seen her performing throughout Europe, Australia & South America. For many years she also had her own chamber music group, The Ruskin Ensemble, with whom a particularly memorable occasion was the giving of a concert at the British Embassy in Paris. Of those with whom she studied, perhaps the teacher to whom she feels the most indebted was the inspirational Eli Goren, a founder member of the Allegri String Quartet.
More recently Jane returned to Peru to walk the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and went trekking in Patagonia.
John Lacy has been playing the cello since the age of six. His wide orchestral experience has included regular concerts over more than four decades with the Salomon Orchestra in London, and he also performed regularly with the Amicitia String Quartet for nine years.
He has combined his musical activities with a busy professional career as a lawyer, and away from work he shares with Carolyn an enthusiasm for cycling. Having discerned an apparent tendency for hills to become steeper in recent years however, he will admit to having now switched to an e-bike. He has never knowingly been spotted cycling in pink….
Download poster here