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Music in Pinner Series 2026–2027 Final Season (for now!)

Next concert: MPS 26-27 season Sam Braysher Quartet & Annie Majin: Kurt Weill project: October 10th 7.30pm at Pinner Parish Church

The MPS25–26 season offered eight fantastic concerts up to April, four each of classical and jazz. We opened in September with exceptional violist Milena Simovic & pianist George Fu. They gave a fabulous concert, with plenty of drama and lyricism, as well as terrific interactions between the two musicians. In October, the Clark Tracey Sextet brought us Stan Tracey’s wonderful Under Milk Wood Suite, in its 60th Anniversary year. The suite was inspired by Dylan Thomas’s extraordinary poem. A superb evening of jazz and poetry intertwined, full of fun and presented with great skill. For November, Pocket Ellington, led by pianist and arranger Alex Webb, created a fine Ellingtonian sound. This was a slick, stylish and sophisticated gig when we could savour the enormous sweep of Ellington’s compass and influence, We ended the first half of our 25–26 MPS season with a delightful concert by Fiammetta Tarli & Ivo Varbanov (piano four hands), who took us on a wonderful musical journey of stories. The musicians were superb, totally engaged, showing wonderful dexterity and great story-telling.

We opened the 2026 half of the season in January, hosted in inimitable style by Pinner United Synagogue, with Matt Skelton’s BlackHawk Quintet in a ‘cool jazz’ tribute to Shelly Manne, celebrating his Quintet and their golden performances at Blackhawk Jazz Club, San Francisco. The music was bebop style, energetic, and performed with outstanding talent and quality, and enthusiastically received. Lunchtime jazz in February featured the Mátyás Gayer Trio, in which the impressive Hungarian pianist was totally integrated with Dave Green on bass & Steve Brown on drums. This was a simply superb concert, with each member of the Trio having space to explore their contributions, fresh and engaging, with fabulous ensemble. In March, Belgian violin & piano duo of Jolente De Maeyer & Nikolaas Kende gave a truly exceptional recital, in which they performed three distinctive Violin Sonatas, by Beethoven, Brahms & Babajanian. They gave a formidable account of each, with intensity and beauty in brilliant exhibitions of musicianship. For our final concert, in April we were entertained and informed by Moonrakers Folk Band & Oxus String Quartet in their justly acclaimed Vaughan Williams: Roots & Branches. They explored the living tradition of folk song, and how VW drew from them (as did they in fine contemporary arrangements and new versions). The members of both groups gave excellent and characterful performances separately and together, with superb ensemble and solos.

The Music in Pinner Series 26–27 will be the final series, for the time being, as I shall step down as Director after the season. We shall present six concerts, with great variety of styles and genres, from October to March, with tickets at £18, available from early September. On October 10th the Sam Braysher Quartet will present their Kurt Weill project, with singer Annie Majin joining for some of the songs. November 14th brings us the versatile Chameleon Woodwind Quartet, playing arrangements of classics and contemporary pieces on some 13 instruments. The lunchtime concert in December (5th) is given by outstanding violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen in Angels and Demons, solo music from Biber & Bach to Paganini & Ysaÿe. At our January 9th concert at Pinner United Synagogue, we shall welcome back the legendary Scott Hamilton Quartet, a Pinner favourite. Lunchtime jazz on 13th February is by the Paul Higgs Quartet in Shades of Miles, evoking the work of the brilliant trumpeter, Miles Davis. For our swansong concert on 6th March we feature the exceptional duo, Eleanor & Gus, whose appropriately multi-genre Seasons in Time offers a super mix of music across styles and centuries, with Eleanor Grant on vocals & double-bass and Gus McQuade on guitar.

More details will be posted here in the summer, but please put these dates into your diaries now.

Anthony Pinching

Director, Music in Pinner Series