Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 2022: Composer Helen Grime announced as first ever ‘guest festival curator’

The vibrant nine-day festival, which was started in 1984 by the leader of the world-renowned Lindsay String Quartet, Peter Cropper, is held in Sheffield’s intimate Crucible Studio Theatre - an extraordinary and unique in-the-round space that brings audiences to within an arm’s length of the musicians.

It now centres around the extraordinary versatility of the eleven musicians of Sheffield-based Ensemble 360.

They’ll perform in 15 concerts and events over the nine days in May, joining to form duos, trios, string quartets and wind quintets in myriad combinations.

Guest Festival Curator Helen Grime said: “It’s been a huge pleasure and honour to be guest curator of the 2022 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival. I’ve had lots of fun working with Ensemble 360, putting together programmes of music I love, finding connections between old and new music and threading through various themes that are close to my heart.

“Each concert features the music of at least one female composer, including overlooked gems from the last few hundred years, as well as more recent pieces and a world premiere.

“I’m very excited to be welcoming some of the most distinguished musicians working in the country as guest artists, and I hope audiences will enjoy meeting them, as well as seeing Ensemble 360 back in their Festival home, the Crucible Studio Theatre.”

Tickets for the festival are now on general sale and can be purchased from www.musicintheround.co.uk, or Sheffield Theatres box office in person, or by calling 0114 249 6000.