The Brook Street Band: Heading to York for the Early Music Composers Award Day workshops and concert on May 15
THE 2025 National Centre for Early Music Composers Award Day will be led by The Brook Street Band in the baroque instrumental group’s first engagement at the NCEM, York, on May 15.
The annual competition was launched on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show and BBC Sounds on November 17 last year, when composers were invited to create a short work for two violins, cello and harpsichord – one of the most popular chamber music groupings of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Entrants resident in the UK were divided into two categories: 18 years old and under and 19 to 25 years old, whose four-minute compositions had to “reflect the extraordinarily inventive musical heritage of Purcell, Corelli and Handel and create a 21st century response to this wonderful music”.
Daytime workshops for shortlisted candidates will be hosted by composer Dr Christopher Fox before the compositions will be performed by The Brook Street Band at the NCEM, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, in the evening. Each young composer will have the chance to work individually with the group on the day.
The shortlisted pieces will be played in the presence of the panel of judges and an invited audience at 7pm. The winning pieces will be announced after the concert and the performance will be live-streamed through the NCEM’s website at necem.co.uk.
The winning works will be premiered by The Brook Street Band on October 3 as part of the love:Handel festival in Norwich and will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show and BBC Sounds.
NCEM director Delma Tomlin says: “We’re very excited to welcome The Brook Street Band as our partner for the Young Composers Award 2025. This ensemble is not only one of the leading exponents of Handel’s music, but also has set up its very own festival, love:Handel, where the winning 2025 compositions will be performed.
“The Young Composers Award is one of the most important dates on the NCEM’s calendar and continues to grow from strength to strength, attracting more and more entries from aspiring young composers from all over the UK.
“Taking part in the award has been an important step in the careers of many successful composers and we are looking forward to hearing this year’s new compositions.”
Les Pratt, producer of BBC Radio 3’s The Early Music Show producer, says: “BBC Radio 3 is delighted to continue to support this award, now looking ahead to its 18th edition. It’s hugely important to challenge and nurture young talent, and what’s most gratifying is seeing past winners and entrants who are now making their way in the professional world.
“We are really looking forward to sharing the 2025 compositions for The Brook Street Band with our audiences at home on The Early Music Show.”
Tatty Theo, cellist and director of The Brook Street Band, says: “We’re thrilled to have the privilege of working with young composers, giving life to brand new music that will showcase the varied colours and rich character of our old baroque instruments.
“Handel’s music is at the heart of our music-making, and we cherish this opportunity to explore the creativity it inspires and unleashes in a new young generation of composers.”
Named after the London Street where George Frideric Handel lived from 1723 to 1759, The Brook Street Band was formed by baroque cellist Tatty Theo, rapidly establishing itself among the UK’s leading Handel specialists, and has retained an unusually stable core membership for more than 20 years, skilled in precise and spontaneous musicianship, where the players react instinctively to each other and play as one.
Tatty spoke to CharlesHutchPress from Hamburg, where she was working on preparations for the Young Composers Award Day with first violinist Rachel Harris, utilising a borrowed cello.
“You have to buy a seat on the plane for your cello, and it’s not that straightforward,” she says. “If it’s a busy flight, they try to bump off the cello. You can put the cello in the pressurised hold, but the problem is that baggage handlers don’t know what to do with it – and I don’t like flying anyway!”
It may have taken 20 years for The Brook Street Band to head to York, but better late than never, and Tatty’s group has performed at the companion Beverley Early Music Festival. “I’ve known Delma for years because my group has been established for a long time, and I’ve always kept an eye on her work,” says Tatty.
“The Brook Street Band has a history of contemporary commissions, exploring new repertoire ranging from songs and trio sonatas written especially for period instruments by such composers as Errollyn Wallen and Nitin Sawhney (for the London International Festival of Early Music).
“These commissions challenge you in different ways, so when Delma said, ‘would you be interested in the Young Composers Award’, I absolutely jumped at the chance, particularly as we’ll be working with young composers.”
The Brook Street Band will meet the eight finalists for the first time on May 15 to workshop their works. “We’ve had the repertoire for over a month now, and because I’m with Rachel in Hamburg, we can do some useful work together, bouncing ideas off each other,” says Tatty.
The Brook Street Band cellist and director Tatty Theo
“Otherwise, we will all work on our own ahead of two pretty intensive days of working in York, finessing what the composers have written and they can see how their works fit with our instruments.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting them. We only get to work with each of them for 40 minutes, so it’s going to be a whirlwind, with Christopher Fox there as well to steer everything through to the award day concert.”
Tatty comes from a family of cellists going back three generations, and her interest in baroque repertoire became apparent at a very young age, but she has a confession to make. “I didn’t want to play cello! My uncle is a cellist and my grandfather was a very notable cellist, but I didn’t want to play it as a young child,” she says.
“No-one pushed me, but I had a babysitter when I was five or six who also played cello, so I started, then I moved on to lessons with my grandfather, playing duets.”
Her grandfather happened to be William Pleeth, no less. Likewise, her uncle is English Concert Chamber Group co-founder Anthony Pleeth, who she would hear performing Geminiani cello sonatas on the baroque cello. “I wanted to be like Anthony, playing baroque cello, like him, from the age of 16,” she says.
Her grandmother, Margaret Good, was a concert pianist too. “She was a really ground-breaking player, performing premieres at the Proms,” says Tatty, who went on to read music at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and continue her studies at postgraduate level at the Royal College of Music, where she won many of the Early Music prizes.
She has since performed as a soloist at festivals throughout Britain and Europe, with live broadcasts for BBC and European radio stations, as well as her life-long passion for Handel and love of performing chamber music leading her to found The Brook Street Band.
“I wouldn’t put pressure on the next generation to play, but if they want to, then I’d be delighted,” says Tatty, who also maintains the Pleeth family archive, her “passion project”.
Beyond her remarkably musical family, she loves to spread the joy of music-making into schools with The Brook Street Band. “That’s something we’re really passionate about,” she says.
“We take music into state schools to bridge the gap in provision, to give primary and secondary schoolchildren the chance to play at workshops because I just feel it’s tragic that it’s not the focus in schools any more.
“I live in a creative part of North London, where the schools have traditionally taught GCSE and A-level Music, but fewer and fewer primary schools teach music, and so there are fewer and fewer children doing it in secondary schools, and the performing arts are becoming marginalised.
“It’s now STEM [an educational approach that integrates the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics], when it should be STEAM by including the Arts.”
One element of Tatty’s love:Handel festival is to work with schools. “We fund tickets for children to come to the concerts and we pay for the bus fares as well,” she says. “Part of our fundraising is allocated to help to make classical music accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t have that access.
“Sometimes there are cultural barriers, sometimes physical, so making music accessible to young people is a big part of what we do, giving everyone that sense of wonder.”
Tatty would urge children to investigate all options to learn a musical instrument. “Some councils have music hubs, which are phenomenal, and they often make music lessons affordable,” she says. “I’m 100 per cent encouraging children to pursue to pursue those options, because you will find like-minded people, your tribe, whereas I was mercilessly teased at primary school for playing the cello.”
She welcomes the diversity of possibilities for aspiring composers. “Beethoven and Handel were surrounded by music, but now I’m finding there are more ways to express yourself through making music. Now there are loads of composition programmes for children who don’t play instruments but can compose on their computers,” says Tatty.
“My son composes on a mini-keyboard, though he plays the double bass as my other son plays the cello.” Ah yes, the next family cellist is emerging already!
To book tickets for the 2025 National Centre for Early Music Composers Award Day concert, ring 01904 658338 or visit ncem.co.uk
Did you know?
TATTY Theo is working on the first two chapters of a book about her grandfather, William Pleeth, having been awarded a Finzi scholarship to research his musical life in London pre-1930 and his studies in Leipzig from 1930 to 1932.
She also is researching material for an eventual book examining Handel’s use of the cello and writes for various publications about Handel and 18th century music in general.