2023-24 Concert Reviews

For their final event of the 2023-2024 season, Shropshire Music Trust presented a 40th Anniversary Gala Concert. St Chad’s Church was the beautiful venue for this event on Friday 14th June and the music was provided by Birmingham-based choir Ex Cathedra plus two special guests – of whom more later.

“I vividly remember,” said David Juritz, founder member of the London Tango Quintet, “a new girlfriend putting on the first track of Astor Piazzolla’s ‘Zero Hour’. That was the moment tango became an obsession for me. Thirty years on and I’ve brought together my own band and that girlfriend is now my wife. Tango doesn’t always have a sad ending!”

For the penultimate concert of Shrewsbury’s Music Trust’s season, the London Tango Quintet played a memorable concert at Prestfelde School’s Blackburn Theatre. This has been a superb season for the Trust; some daring bookings, well-planned programmes and an unfailingly high standard of musicianship. The concert on May 24th was no exception.

On the afternoon of Sunday, 5th May 2024, Elisabeth Brauss was greeted with a huge round of applause as she took to the stage, bowing modestly before taking her seat at the Steinway. As soon as she struck the first notes of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 18 in E flat major, Op. 31, No. 3 "The Hunt”, the audience knew they were in the presence of a supremely gifted pianist, who plays with great feeling and astonishing precision.