An exciting season of streamed performed music will be broadcast online this September, each featuring virtuoso violist and Nottingham Chamber Music Festival organiser Carmen Flores playing solo from iconic Nottingham venues.
The festival – “Nottingham Stories: Separation and Serenade”– is a project in response to the cancellation of the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival (NCMF), which has been running successfully across the city since 2018.
Carmen Flores has joined forces with award-winning Nottingham filmmaker Tim Bassford and a swathe of Nottingham venues to produce a series of beautifully shot films which will be streamed via the NCMF website throughout September, each one free to view.
Each piece of music has been selected to complement the venue it is performed in, alongside the story of how these institutions coped with lockdown and the uncertainty in their sectors.
This film hopes to provide a time capsule of the impact that Covid-19 had upon the arts in 2020. Unifying the community through music is the heart of NCMF, and the film would have not been possible without the support and collaboration of all these venues.
Carmen Flores, soloist and Director of Nottingham Chamber Music Festival said:
“Throughout this spring and summer of lockdown, venues across Nottingham lay empty – some still do. I imagined them as not desolate places, but spaces where a spark of hope flickered, the spirit of Nottingham in all its diverse, vibrant creativity alive and waiting for the people to return. Each venue had a unique feel to it, which I want to capture within the beauty of music”
Tim Bassford, filmmaker, said:
“Filming inside these venues was at one humbling and inspiring: the emptiness of once busy buildings had a melancholy, but one with hope. The music, the film, and the locations all mix together to make something special, a visual poetry, a tribute to our city”
DATES AND VENUES
14th Sept – Council House
16th Sept – St. Mary’s in the Lace Market
18st Sept – Delilah Fine Foods
21st Sept – Nottingham High School
23th Sept – Royal Concert Hall
25th Sept – Nottingham Contemporary
All images courtesy of Nottingham Chamber Music Festival. Find out more on the website: https://nottchamberfest.com/