'We' are the Berkeley Ensemble who appear at Sheffield Cathedral next Saturday when they perform the octets by Schubert and Howard Ferguson.

If the enlargement materialises, it means they will have exactly the same instrumental personnel as Ensemble 360.

However, Gemma claims not to know much about them.

The Berkeley came together in March and are current members of the Southbank Sinfonia in London which the ensemble's cellist, Sheffield born-and raised Gemma, explains is an "orchestra academy."

She expounds further: "It changes every nine months and is intended to fill the gap between leaving music college and starting work professionally which is a bit of a beast sometimes. There's not much support in the education system in this country to help at that stage."

A whole new orchestra with the cream of the crop of music college graduates is created every January and membership lasts for an intensive nine months, during which orchestral skills are learnt.

"So I'm Southbank Sinfonia 2008," quips Gemma.

"I and my colleagues in the ensemble have been working to set things up for when our time in the Sinfonia finishes, so that we are still playing. Some days it will be unpaid work but still great experience which will be useful in the future.

"We're not known as the moment but are putting in the groundwork.

"We have lots of great ideas and are coming to Sheffield (and Manchester the night before), partly because it's my home town and also because we want to extend out of London."

The young cellist, from a highly musical city family, effectively left Sheffield six years ago, initially as an undergraduate at Manchester University before going to the Royal Northern College of Music and graduating with a masters degree and distinction in 2007.

For three years she was principal cellist with the City of Sheffield Youth Orchestra which she joined at 17. Her swan song, so to speak, with them was the trip to Croatia in 2005 when they played for a Bolshoi Ballet performance of Swan Lake – "one of the best experiences I have ever had and a really big part of my development because it encouraged me to go on and do music."

Modesty maybe forbids Gemma mentioning a more recent notable 'experience,' giving a memorial recital at the Jacqueline Du Pré Room in Oxford – a measure of the talent within the Berkeley Ensemble perhaps.

The group was formed with the aim of championing British music and takes its name from father and son composers Sir Lennox and Michael Berkeley.

"We want to be playing as much British music as we can, as well standard things such as the Schubert Octet," declares Gemma.

"We are also going to be commissioning works.

We have a couple already (an octet and sextet) and more over the next few years for octet, septet and sextet, because there isn't much repertoire for the combination (the Berkeley have) so we want to add to it."

The ensemble's repertoire is impressive and enticing if, naturally, not large at present and includes octets by Françaix and Hindemith, septets by Beethoven and Berwald, Mozart's Clarinet and Horn quintets.

Sextets, for clarinet, horn and string quartet, are the domain of British composers Lennox Berkeley and John Ireland and, of course, there's an octet written in 1933 by Howard Ferguson who was born in 1908 which the Berkeley are playing next Saturday.

"Ferguson intended it to programmed with the Schubert Octet," says Gemma. "It's really a rather lovely piece, about half an hour long, with a British feel and lots of folky elements to it."

It has been described as Brahmsian.

Gemma ponders: "It's got a lot of massed sound, quite dense contrapuntal textures in places which is very Brahmsian. Very clever interplay between instruments. Yes, I can understand why it's been called Brahmsian."

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