Nash Ensemble

The Nash Ensemble has been Resident Chamber Ensemble at Wigmore Hall since 2010 and is acclaimed for its adventurous programming and virtuoso performances. It presents works from Haydn to the avant-garde, and is a major contributor towards the recognition and promotion of contemporary composers. By the end of the 2019/20 season the group will have premièred over 300 new works by 225 different composers of which 215 have been especially commissioned.

An impressive collection of recordings illustrates the same varied and colourful combination of classical masterpieces, little-known neglected gems and important contemporary works. Releases receiving critical acclaim include all the Mozart String Quintets, Russian chamber music, and chamber works by Schumann and Joaquin Turina, and by Czech composers incarcerated in the Theresienstadt concentration camp between 1941 and 1945. Releases have also included a CD of Hollywood composers for Hyperion, Harrison Birtwistle’s The Moth Requiem for Signum Classics and a CD of chamber works by Max Bruch for Hyperion. Last June the Nash recorded works by Ernst von Dohnányi and this year it has recorded chamber works by Julian Anderson for NMC and those of Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann for Hyperion.

Over the last two years the Nash has presented major series of concerts including ‘German Romantics’ and in 2019/20 their performances centred around the music of Schubert and that of several of his contemporaries. Other recent highlights have included concerts in Turkey, France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The Ensemble broadcasts regularly for the BBC including appearances at the BBC Proms.

The Nash Ensemble has won numerous accolades including The Edinburgh Festival Critics award ‘for general artistic excellence’ and two Royal Philharmonic Society awards in the chamber music category “for the breadth of its taste and its immaculate performance of a wide range of music.”