Septura are delighted to announce the group’s debut concert series, Kleptomania. The four concerts will present the prize pickings of music that the group has “stolen” through transcription for brass septet: plunder from string ensembles, pianists, chamber orchestras and singers. The series will take place at both St John’s Smith Square, London and West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge.

The brass septet is a brand new invention, and therein lies the root of our compulsion to steal: we have no canon of repertoire, no grand history of great compositions. And so we’re inventing one. Like musical Robin Hoods we thieve from the richest ensembles to create a counterfactual history — a parallel universe in which, in the world of chamber music, the brass septet rules.

Artistic Director Matthew Knight explains:
“It’s long been an ambition for Septura to perform a concert series. We want to develop our programming over a longer span than a single concert, and really explore the depth and breadth of the vast musical possibilities available to this versatile ensemble. Audiences are always pleasantly surprised by the huge range of colours and expression that the brass septet can create, and so we hope to cast all these works – some familiar, some perhaps not – in an intriguingly new light.”

There is a brand new micro-site just for the series – check it out at kleptomania.septura.org

Kleptomania at a glance:

Stolen Strings – Elgar Serenade, Walton Sonata, Shostakovich 8th Quartet
19 September 2017, 7.30 pm (London), 5 October 2017, 7.30 pm (Cambridge)

Pilfered Piano – Debussy Préludes, Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
20 February 2018, 7.30 pm (London), 25 February 2018, 7.30 pm (Cambridge)

Borrowed Baroque – Rameau Dardanus, Handel Rinaldo, Stravinsky Pulcinella
1 May 2018, 7.30 pm (London), 4 May 2018, 7.30 pm (Cambridge)

Song Swag – Ravel Mother Goose, Fauré Mélodies, Gershwin Piano Preludes, Songbook, An American in Paris
9 July 2018, 7.30 pm (Cambridge), 10 July 2018, 7.30 pm (London)